stag adj.
1. of a man (occas. a woman: see cit. 2001), unaccompanied, by oneself in a social situation, e.g. a dance, where other men have partners; also as adv.; thus go stag
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Diary of a Forty-Niner (1906) 74: I coaxed Anderson to go along; said he did not feel like having a stag blowout; rather have a pasear with Jack over on the river. | |
| letter q. in Wiley Life of Johnny Reb (1943) 167: The Capt and myself had a regular concert, winding up in a stag dance. | |
| Edgefield Advertiser (SC) 4 Oct. 7/4: Pigeon, I’m through with all this bachelor stuff. No more stag suppers. | |
| letter 20 Dec. in Riggio Dreiser-Mencken Letters II (1986) 365: I am booked for three-under-the-table parties, all stag. | |
| Amboy Dukes 24: They had to [...] stay out of the clubroom if they were stag. [Ibid.] 146: The Dukes who were stag stood in a group near the door. | |
| in Profile of Youth 233: Even when fellows are out stag, a car is indispensable. | |
| Plunder (2005) 318: Only Blacky was without a woman. Not that Blacky was aware of his stag status. | |
| Gardens of Stone (1985) 191: I’ll just come stag if it’s okay with you. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 313: The bar filled up. Stag GIs cruised stag nurses. | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] The idea of going to the reunion stag put a pang in his chest. |
2. pertaining to men only, usu. in a sexual context.
| Wheeling Dly Intelligencer (WV) 26 Feb. 4/5: The annual ‘stag’ social of Wheeling Lodge B, P.O. Elks, was given at Germania Hall. | |
| Coeur d’Alene 226: Is this a stag picnic? | |
| Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 6 Aug. n.p.: The old-time Amazon march came to be hooted even in the cheap stag houses. | |
| Mutt & Jeff 7 Dec. [synd. strip] A tuxedo should never be worn with ladies — all wrong! That’s a stag coat. | |
| Albuquerque Morn. Jrnl (NM) 11 Nov. 17/5: Mr Harold Galer was host of a stag dinner on Wednesday. | |
| Home to Harlem 317: The new cabaret had a bar with stools, where men could get together away from their women for a quick drink and a little stag conversation. | |
| ‘The Jollity Building’ in Just Enough Liebling (2004) 250: [She] books stag shows for conventions. | |
| Back Where I Came From (1990) 90: Hymie goes to his office, which he shares with a man who puts on stag shows. | |
| ‘Ingrid Bergman in “Stag Star”’ [comic strip] in Tijuana Bibles (1997) 111: You’ll be known at every stag show in the world. | |
| Blackboard Jungle 98: He was a nice guy now, a master of ceremonies at a stag smoker. | |
| Cast the First Stone 20: And the white peep- and stag-show operators have fellows out to tell downtown tricks that Harlem peep shows are the wickedest ever. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Concrete Kimono 135: Joke sex at a stag dinner. | |
| Die Nigger Die! 41: Jet magazine, the colored Playboy, a cross between a stag magazine and the Pittsburg Police Gazette, talks Black and sells white. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Traveller’s Tool 96: I yield to none in my abhorrence of sexual discrimination in the workplace but, funnily enough, international conferences are invariably stag affairs. | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 178: Old stag books: T.J. venues, women sucking cock, boys sucking cock, up-the-hole close-ups. | |
| Guardian Rev. 12 June 12: It’s the lament of a man whose life has turned into one long stag do. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 100: It’s [i.e. Deep Throat] better than the old stag things they had, but she’s no Rita Hayworth, the broad they used. | |
| Sun. Times Mag. 19 Dec. 63/2: At Wayne [Rooney] ’s stag do in Ibiza, he was chaperoned by Coleen’s dad. | |
| Times Times2 16 Dec. 🌐 If you banned cross-dressing, the stag do (not to mention Shakespeare) would be in crisis. |
3. for men only, in a non-sexual context.
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 382: It was a stag flat, and there were four of us. | |
 | Nebraska State Jrnl 3 Apr. 17/1: He went to [...] a stag picnic. | |
| ‘Life on Broadway’ in McClure’s Mag. Mar. 36/1: I’m a sick man; an’ yet, I had to be three-cheerin’ a stag beefsteak in the Dungeon till four this mornin’. | |
| Never Come Morning (1988) 136: Out of the open-door barrel houses, out of the secret brothels, out of the two-bit honky-tonks, out of the stag hotels. | |
| End as a Man (1952) 220: ‘Were there any women present?’ ‘No, sir, it was stag.’. | |
| Walking the Beat 168: It [i.e. an outing] was strictly stag: the wives remained at home. | |
| Underground Dict. (1972). | |
| Happy Like Murderers 123: At the stag afternoons he liked to watch the watchers as much as the show. |
In derivatives
men-only, thus usu. uninhibited, tending to male-orientated self-indulgence.
| Alta Calif. 16 Jan. cited in S.F. Examiner 4 June 1921 12/3: It [i.e. a ‘grand impromptu ball’] was decidedly ‘staggish,’ with a touch of the ‘free and easy’ . | |
| Pittsburgh Post-Gaz. (PA) 25 Apr. 6/4: Nor is the fox-trot movement either graceful or becoming, but rather staggish and sensuous. | |
| Invitin’ men (no women) [...] The juleps cooled the throats of a selected two score gathered at the very staggish party : . | |
| Hartford Courant (CT) 10 Aug. 12/4: The limerick’s a jewel of levity [...] though ordinarily unprintable [...] Except in staggish company. | |
| Detroit Free Press (MI) 19 Sept. 3/1: Henry Ford II hosted a stag party fund raiser [...] There was no staggish entertainment, just good talk. |
In compounds
(US) a men-only dance, usu. performed in bar-rooms or taverns; also arranged for all-male troops in barracks or camps.
| Kentuckian in N.Y. I 69: We have [...] enjoyed the same dances – stag dances, I mean. | |
| Amer. Pioneer II 61: If perchance a fiddle or a jewsharp was possessed by any of the inmates [of the fort], it was occasionally brought into requisition, and the monotony disturbed by the hilarity of a stag dance [DA]. | |
| Sun (Baltimore) 13 Nov. n.p.: The prisoners in the jail at Lafayette, Indiana, have been provided with a violin; and, one of the number being a good player, they have frequent stag-dances [F&H]. | |
| Kansas Nat. Democratic (Lecompton, KS) 26 Jan. 3/2: After the formalities of the banquet [...] we retired to [...] enjoy the lively recreation of a ‘stag dance’. | |
| Sazerac Lying Club 130: Such other sets as might be formed on the floor could be ‘stag’ dances – that is, dances in which only men take part. | |
| Chicago Trib. 18 Oct. 5/2: Arizona is full of cowboys [...] they would often secure a violin or a banjo and improvise a regular ‘stag dance’. | |
| Scranton Republican (PA) 1 Aug. 5/6: Features of Life in Camp. A Stag Dance and Its Allurements. Boys anxious to reach the Front. | |
| ‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 21: stag dance, n. phr. A dance attended only by men. | |
| Alexandria Times-Trib. (IN) 2 Jan. 3/1: [headline] Stag dances Are Popular. | |
| (ref. to 1853) Forty Years on the Frontier (1925) I 82: On Saturday night the miners would get up a stag dance, there being very few women in camp . | |
| Oakland Trib. (CA) 13 June 20/4: The men coming from both ways [...] gave by constrast even the garb of a common soldier a degree of elegance that marked him for the lady’s part in the ordinary ‘stag dance’. | |
| (ref. to 1910s) Taxi-Dance Hall 17: The first efforts of its clientele to provide a satisfactory name for the taxi-dance hall resulted in such descriptive phrases as [...] ‘stag dance’. | |
| Honolulu Star-Bull. (HI) 5 Apr. 1/3: 7 pm. to 11 pm. — Stag Dance at Maluhia for enlisted men. | |
| Barnard Bulletin (NY) 1 Mar. 2/3: A stag dance was planned [...] a band hired. |
(US teen) a girl with whom no-one dances.
| Baltimore Sun 22 June Magazine 6/5: Stags hags . . . see Still life [i.e. wallflowers]. |
1. (US) a number of unescorted men at a dance, who usu. stand in line eyeing the women.
| ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 100: Warren McIntyre was standing passively in the stag line abstractedly watching the dancers. | |
| Plastic Age 212: [He] joined the stag line, waiting for a chance to cut in. | |
| ‘Rock-a-Bye Booby’ in Ten Detective Aces Sept. 🌐 Carmody watched from the zoot-suited stag line. | |
| Battle Cry (1964) 27: The stag line at the weekly gym dance. | |
| No Red Ribbons (1968) 133: As the dance got under way not a single officer left the stag line. |
2. (US gay) a gathering of gay male prostitutes in a park or similarly well-known area.
| City of Night 275: Cars still go round the block to choose a paid partner from the stagline. |
the first month that follows childbirth.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
a pornographic film.
| Call House Madam (1943) 401: I knew they’d want stag motion pictures. | |
| Man Who Was Not With It (1965) 277: He had artistic ambitions [...] to make stag movies. | |
| in Sweet Daddy 67: So hot to be in the movies, was mostly making it in stags and French stuff. | |
| Essential Lenny Bruce 235: The stag movie, the dirty movie — the sixteen millimeter reduction print that you drag from lodge hall to lodge hall. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 11: In the idleness of his past two years he had sat still for the showing of several so-called stag-films. | |
| in Great Shark Hunt (1980) 180: They dug the stag movies. | |
| (con. 1949) True Confessions (1979) 172: Two of the girls had records for prostitution [...] and a fourth for acting in a stag movie as a minor. | |
| London Fields 216: There was the sprinkling of stag films he had been obliged to watch half of during business trips to Hong Kong. | |
| London Blues 16: The ambient décor of home-grown stags has always been kitsch, terminal kitsch. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 202: Stag-flick time. A bedsheet screen and a projector. Lez antics — young girls entwined. | |
| Guardian The Editor 7 Sept. 13/4: We meet Juice terry who’s making stag films. |
1. any social event from which women are excluded; also attrib.
| Spike Island (1981) 137: Something of the kind suggested by the stag-night banter round the bar. |
2. (also stag do) the trad. uproarious eve-of-wedding party held by the groom and his male cronies.
| Listener 9 Sept. 373/2: On ‘stag nights’ it [i.e. the entertainment] is pretty blue. | |
| Sun. Times 6 Feb. 17: For me, one of the most exquisite pleasures in life was a stag night. | |
| Observer Mag. 20 Feb. 29/1: My life was just about hanging round with my mates, drinking beer, going on stag nights. | |
| What They Was 167: You need to do this before your baby is born [...] it’s like his stag do or some shit. |
(orig. US) an all-male party, esp. on the night preceding the wedding of one of the men.
| Pioneer May 318: A young lady of this city asked a gentleman, a day or two since, ‘Why old bachelors’ gatherings were called stag parties?’ [DA]. | |
| Golden Butterfly II 161: George Eliot of course I could not invite to a stag party. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Dec. 2/1: Naughty Mrs. Langtry! she has kicked over the traces [and] has run away with the ‘bloods.’ She would go to ‘stag’ parties. | |
| Voces Populi 29: Tourist with a Twang. Air your Company a Stag-party? | |
| Girl Proposition 38: A Husband who was kept busy trying to guess the most celebrated Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne would never hanker for a Stag Party. | |
| ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 375: stag-dance (-dinner, -party), n. A dance (dinner, party) at which men only are present. | |
| Buffalo Eve. News (NY) 24 May 6/5: Louise [...] asked her mother, ‘Where is papa going?’ ‘To a stag party,’ she replied. | |
| ‘Anathema’ in Seaways 237: My husband told me this was to be a ‘stag party,’ and I expect I shall be superfluous. | |
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 107: She hates dem hag and stag parties dey has at houses nowadays. | |
| ‘Headwaiter’ in Opportunity Mar. 77/2: [N]oticing that a raised window was annoying a stag party of four in the rear corner, he broke off and hurried to close it. | |
| Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 52: This was a stag party, and what a party! | |
| Room at the Top (1959) 107: A dirty story, the sort that one can only tell at stag parties. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | An Only Child (1970) 61: He gave great stag parties, and after them the men had to be carried up to bed. | |
| Best Man To Die (1981) 8: This is supposed to be a stag party, not an annual general meeting. | |
| (con. 1960s) Black Gangster (1991) 44: As out of place as a housewife at a stag party. | |
| Southern Discomfort (1983) 185: ‘What havoc do you intend to wreak tonight?’ [...] ‘A stag party.’. | |
| Guardian Editor 21 Jan. 21: Tips on beating pre-wedding nerves and conducting joint stag and hen parties. | |
| Observer 26 Jan. 44/1: If you are a Conservative MP [...] explaining how you ended up at a stag party with a man wearing a Nazi uniform [etc.]. |
a man whose wife has just given birth.
| DSUE (1984) 1141/2: from ca. 1870. |
In phrases
of a man, to go to a dance or party without a female partner.
| ‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 21: stag, adv. Without a girl. ‘Are you going to the dance stag?’. | |
| Buffalo Eve. News (NY) 24 may 6/3: Girless Dances. Have you ever seen a stag dance? Not what the boys back home call ‘going stag’ to a dance where there are girls, but a dance where only stags are present. | |
| Plastic Age 210: He was not ‘dragging a woman,’ but several of the brothers were going ‘stag’; so he felt completely at ease. | |
| Room to Swing 66: How do you like going stag? | |
| ‘Kansas University Sl.: A New Generation’ in AS XXXVIII:3 170: To go alone to a dance or social function: go stag. |
(orig. US) will you be coming, usu. to a party, alone or with a female companion?
| DSUE (8th edn) 1141/2: [...] since late 1940s. |