stance

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The manner, pose, or posture in which one stands.

   The fencer’s stance showed he was ready to begin.

2. 2
   noun

   One's opinion or point of view.

   I don’t agree with your stance on gun control.

3. 3
   noun

   A place to stand; a position, a site, a station.

   No! sooner may the Saxon lance / Unfix Benledi from his stance, / Than doubt or terror can pierce through / The unyielding heart of Robert Dhu; […]

4. 4
   noun

   A place for buses or taxis to await passengers; a bus stop, a taxi rank.

   The number of Carriages at each of the Stances or divisions of Stances, and the spaces to be occupied, shall be fixed from time to time as may be found necessary. In the event of any New Stance being appointed during the currency of these Regulations, if said Stance shall be within half a mile of the nearest fixed Stance, the Fares from said New Stance shall be the same as from the Stance nearest to it.

5. 5
   noun

   A place where a fair or market is held; a location where a street trader can carry on business.

   To the action by the proprietor of a tenement in burgh against the proprietor of the adjoining stance to recover one-half the cost of a mutual gable, of which the defender had taken the use, it was pleaded in defence (1) that the mutual gable having been erected by the common author of the parties no claim arose to the proprietor of one stance against the proprietor of the other; […]

6. 6
   noun

   A stanza.

   Other Muſique, and voyces; and this ſecond Stance was ſung, directing their obſeruance to the King. […] This ended the Phœbades ſung the third Stance.

7. 7
   verb

   To place, to position, to station; (specifically) to put (cattle) into an enclosure or pen in preparation for sale.

   Rob Roy ſtood watch / On a hill for to catch / The booty for ought that I ſa', man, / For he ne'er advanced, / From the place he was ſtanc'd, / 'Till no more to do there at a' man, […]

8. 8
   noun

   standing posture

Etymology

From Middle English staunce (“place to stand; battle station; position; standing in society; circumstance, situation; stanchion”), from Old French estance (“predicament; situation; sojourn, stay”) (compare modern French stance (“stanza; position one stands in when golfing”)), from Italian stanza (“room, standing place; stanza”), from Vulgar Latin *stantia, from Latin stō (“to stand; to remain, stay”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”). The word is cognate with Spanish estante (“shelf”) and a doublet of stanza. The verb is derived from the noun. Compare typologically…