staði

Staði is a term found in Icelandic linguistics that refers to a grammatical form of the noun staður, which means place or site. The base word staður is a common noun in Icelandic used to denote a location, residence, or site in both everyday usage and literary contexts. Staði represents an inflected form used in certain grammatical cases and is most often seen in older texts, grammar descriptions, and in the study of toponymy. In contemporary Icelandic, the lemma for "place" is typically used in its non-inflected form, while staðir is the standard plural nominative. The word's etymology traces back to Old Norse staðr, a cognate of the English "stead" and related to place-name elements that survive in Icelandic toponymy. Elements derived from staðr are common in place names, and Staði may appear as part of larger proper names or in historical descriptions of locations. The term is primarily encountered in dictionaries, linguistic studies, and discussions of Icelandic inflection and Old Norse heritage. See also staður, staðir, staðsetning (location), toponymy.