A stiffened bodice; early form of corset.
1On the floor a pair of stays, old and soiled, sprawled with unconcern.
2She could not cry in a pair of stays.
3Her figure wouldn't be bad if her mother bought her a decent pair of stays.
4It is nothing (between ourselves) but a hook-nose and a stiff pair of stays.
5A pair of stays became her well, and a loose white kerchief for her bare neck.
6Good lissom figure, that looked as if it had never been boxed up in a pair of stays.
7She sat by the open window mending a pair of stays; at her side was her work table, upon that her three-wicked lamp.
8The friends of the government carried Paine in effigy, with a pair of stays under his arms, and burned the figure in the streets.
9Each felt the chill of steel against the naked side, and seeing the pair of stays on the table, they calculated its resisting force.
10I've fetched and carried for her-infact I once had the honour to be despatched by her mamma to buy her a pair of stays.
11You talk of hampering and cramping Regina's faculties, as if I had put her brains in a pair of stays, and daily tightened the lacers.
12For these twenty years past, the Lord be praised, I have not dared to put on a pair of stays under pain of sudden death.
13"I think so, so far as a pair of stays allows me to judge."
14"Going to fit her with a pair of stays."
15"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair of stays!"
16"I may let in this honest woman," thought Snow-White; and she unbolted the door and bargained for one pair of stays.