Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A raised platform, as in a lecture hall, for speakers or honored guests.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A platform or raised floor at one end or one side of a reception-room or hall, upon which seats for distinguished persons are placed; especially, such a platform covered with a canopy: formerly often called specifically high dais.
- n. Hence Any similar raised portion of the floor of an apartment, used as the place at which the most distinguished guests at a feast are seated, as a platform for a lecturer, etc.
- n. A canopy or covering.
- n. A long board, seat, or settle erected against a wall, and sometimes so constructed as to serve for both a settee and a table; also, a seat on the outer side of a country-house or cottage, frequently formed of turf.
- n. A pew in a church.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete The high or principal table, at the end of a hall, at which the chief guests were seated; also, the chief seat at the high table.
- n. A platform slightly raised above the floor of a hall or large room, giving distinction to the table and seats placed upon it for the chief guests.
- n. obsolete A canopy over the seat of a person of dignity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a platform raised above the surrounding level to give prominence to the person on it
Etymologies
- From Middle English deis < Anglo-Norman (Old French deis, dois) < Latin discus. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English deis, from Anglo-Norman, platform, from Late Latin discus, table, from Latin, discus, quoit; see disk. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Â Do you think the placement of this dais is a coincidence?”
“KT -- the online version itself omitted my own inclusion among the ranks of dragon ladies, so the dais is going to be positively aflame!”
“Many kicho were arranged along the east side of the Queen's dais from the inner room to the veranda.”
“The dais is covered with prayer-rugs, and contains the holy niche and the pulpit of the preacher.”
“A painted stone pathway surrounds that part of the stage, and there are even a couple of patches of grass to suggest the garden, but the centerpiece of the set, which stretches from the courtyard up onto the office dais, is what looks like a mosaic floor such as you might find in a very old church, with the impassive visage of a saint of some kind, face partially eaten away by missing tiles, staring blankly up at heaven.”
“Seated on a chair in the center of the dais was a long, humanoid figure clad in red and white and wearing a veil that completely obscured his or her features.”
“BASH (voice-over): Arlen Specter didn't show up for this Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, but his empty seat at the very end of the dais is a stark illustration of his new junior ranking since Democrats stripped his seniority on all committees.”
“On the dais was a rollcall of Washington power: the president, the secretary of Defense, the civilian and military leaders of America's armed forces, sundry spouses.”
“And there on the dais was a table dight with dainty meats and drinks, and the lady bade us thereto, and we sat to it.”
“There are small trenches running from the center of the rounded dais to the edge, running around the bottom of the dais is a gutterabout a foot deep with a large trench running away from it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dais’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Jesse's random
bathos, dragoman, tessellated, escutcheon, eikon, mondaine, basilisk, ciborium, rubric, machicolation, jet, defalcation and 198 more...
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March 2012
panache, evanescent, erogenous, vestibule, malfeasance, lacuna, blithering, incubate, breech, tabernacle, pearly, upholstery and 79 more...
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Arcades Ambo
arcades ambo, bamboo, ambo, amboyna, bambino, Amboise, framboise, dithurambos, Rambo, flamboyant, gamboge, mambo and 33 more...
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MUN Vocabulary
suspend, abstain, adjourn, agenda, amendment, binding, background guide, bloc, caucus, chair, dais, decorum and 41 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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reginaterra's Words
purl, blow, squish, andean, generality, adaptation, lush, pack, filter, acquiesce, abstraction, sweet and 508 more...
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Really Cool Four-Letter Words
I marvel at the amazing variety of four-letter words in the English language. And that's not even counting really common (to me) words like fuck.
ibis, pelf, sofa, iota, oboe, lava, icon, sped, puha, pulp, puma, kyat and 150 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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good ones
grumble, fumble, bumble, stumble, crumble, mumble, jumble, humble, bramble, scramble, amble, ramble and 191 more...
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Castles and Keeps
Shamelessly ripped off from this site and others (to be named hereinafter). (Fair warning: for my own edification, I may add definitions/comments from the site, but you might want to just go there ...
abutment, adulterine, allure, angle-spur, apse, arbalest, arbalestier, arbalist, arcade, arch, armoury, arrow slit and 410 more...
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fuffbee's Words
panopticon, perihelion, apsis, cuppycake, nexus, fufflebee, shawshank, hoi, lool, apogee, id, rubedo and 90 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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mandarine's Words
antepenultimate, metonymy, synecdoche, pop, kern, inherit, clique, scrumptious, macerate, murmur, kerning, veranda and 1068 more...
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pcofdirt's Words
besmirched, befuddled, ai, sanguineous, antidisestablishm..., ablation, ascertain, ascerbic, aardvark, begot, benign, buggery and 118 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dais.
chained_bear In castles, a raised platform for the high table, at the end of the upper hall.
I had a job once at which people had occasion to use this term frequently, and they always pronounced it "dye-ess." Drove me batshit. Aug 25, 2008