stood
Americanverb
verb
Usage
What is a basic definition of stood? Stood is the past tense and past participle of the verb stand. Stood can mean to be positioned upright (in the past), to not move or budge (in the past), or to believe in something (in the past). Stood, like stand, has many other senses as a verb. As the past tense of stand, stood is used in many of the same idioms. If someone stood somewhere, it means they were in an upright position at that location and not sitting or lying down. If an object stood somewhere, it was located there and hadn’t yet collapsed, fell down, or been moved somewhere else.
- Real-life examples: The Colossus of Rhodes stood at a Greek harbor before collapsing during an earthquake. Archaeologists may find evidence of a building that once stood somewhere in the past but has since been destroyed.
- Used in a sentence: I stood by the door and waited for the mailman.
- Used in a sentence: Larry slowly stood up out of his chair to greet his son.
- Used in a sentence: I swear that the King Kong statue stood over 100 feet tall!
- Used in a sentence: I stood firm against the volley of snowballs.
- Used in a sentence: I try to live up to my mother’s legacy and follow the values she stood for.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
She said her husband did not go up, and instead "stood at the bottom filming" during the summer.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
A. The evidence that stood out the most was something I didn’t experience myself: the call Clancy’s then-husband, Patrick, made to 911 when he returned home to find his wife paralyzed in the yard.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
A violinist who covered music from 1925 to 1947, she was a modernist with her finger on the pulse of the times and stood in refreshing contrast to the fussy East Coast male critics.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
And in the butler’s pantry, where Paul once stood making martinis, there is now, as the Boston Globe notes, “further Poggenpohl cabinetry, Sub-Zero refrigeration, and a beverage cooler.”
From Salon ● Sep. 24, 2026
I stood on the landing outside the dining room and ran my hand over the smooth wood of the Frisian clock.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
