STAGE (Fr. 6/

See also:

• AGE (Fr. age, through late Lat. aetaticum, from aetas)

age; from

See also:

• LAT

Lat. stare, to stand)  , in architecture, an elevated floor, particularly the various storeys of a bell-tower, &c . The term is also applied to the plain parts of buttresses between cap and cap where they set back, or where they are divided by horizontal strings and panelling . It is used, too, by William of Worcester to describe the compartments of windows between transom and transom, in contradistinction to the word bay, which signifies a division between mullion and mullion (see STOREY) . From the sense of the floor or platform on which plays were acted the term came to signify both the theatre (q.v.) and the drama (q.v.) . And from its etymological meaning of a station comes the sense of a place for rest on a journey, the distance between such places, &c .