stag
Americannoun
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stags
plural
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an adult male deer.
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a man who attends a social gathering unaccompanied by a woman.
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Informal. stag party.
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a domesticated boar or bull castrated after maturation of the sexual organs.
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British. a speculator who buys securities of a new issue in the hope of selling them quickly at a higher price.
verb (used without object)
adjective
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of or for men only.
a stag dinner.
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intended for male audiences and usually pornographic in content.
a stag show.
adverb
noun
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the adult male of a deer, esp a red deer
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a man unaccompanied by a woman at a social gathering
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stock exchange
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a speculator who applies for shares in a new issue in anticipation of a rise in price when trading commences in order to make a quick profit on resale
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( as modifier )
stag operations
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(modifier) (of a social gathering) attended by men only
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(modifier) pornographic in content
a stag show
adverb
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of stag
First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English stagge; akin to Old Norse steggi, steggr “male bird” (giving rise to northern English dialect steg “gander”), Icelandic steggur “male fox, tomcat”
Explanation
A stag is another word for a buck, or a male deer. If you spot a family of deer in the woods, the stag is the one with the largest antlers. There are different terms for male deer, depending on the species, and stag usually describes the largest types of deer. Stags are also commonly seen in paintings of deer hunts. Another way to use the word stag is as a verb meaning "go without a date," especially to a formal party or dance. In the mid-1800's, a "stag party" was a group made up only of men, a term that came to mean a bachelor party.
Vocabulary lists containing stag
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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.
See Examples For:
Gascoigne said: "Where the Monarch shows the stag in the brilliance of youth, this is a darker, more epic vision: majestic, charged with tension, and iconic in its vision of the Highlands."
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Featuring a 12-point stag on a Scottish Highland peak, it was commissioned by railway magnate Edward Betts and has passed through various private collections.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
The killing of the stag is also under investigation by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2025
Life at the St. George Reef Lighthouse — a so-called stag station where no women or children were allowed — was brutal and lonely.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2025
The comet was red, but Joffrey was Baratheon as much as Lannister, and their sigil was a black stag on a golden field.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Most of our pets don’t pull carts, hunt stags, herd sheep or detect drugs, where we need to ensure correct performance.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 27, 2023
The fenced pastures for the bulls were now overrun with thousands of young stags and pullets, pecking at the trail of food he threw out from the golf cart.
From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2023
Stags with big antlers score more often than stags with small ones.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2022
“I just kind of see it as two stags locking up in the forest,” Cole said.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 7, 2022
The garments the sisters took from them were decorated with black hearts, grey lions, dead flowers, and pale ghostly stags.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
He is stagged; there is a game playing, but what I know not.
From Count Alarcos; a Tragedy by Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield
Cadets who "stagged" it were expected to stand.
From Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
But month after month went by, an' th' brass kept gettin' less, do what we would; an' th' times geet wur, till at last we fund ersels fair stagged up.
From Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine by Edwin Waugh
But, howsomdever, the farmer came wi 'um, and a waundy big dog that stagged me, and barked like fury.
From Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat
"For we don't really want to go to the seminary; we go to school here in Milton," which peculiar association of ideas rather stagged General MacKenzie.
From The Corner House Girls Growing Up What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended by Grace Brooks Hill
Ltd. $20,000,000, and there was said to be "hardly any stagging."
From Time Magazine Archive
"I should cut the concern," said Watson, "and take to stagging in Surrey."
From Marion Fay by Anthony Trollope
A young stripling or two may drop in, stagging it.
From Blue Ridge Country by Erskine Caldwell
The cove was touting, but stagging the traps he toddled; be was looking out, and feeing the officers he walked away.
From 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose
But too many of the cadets were "stagging it" that night.
From Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock
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.
