Full definition of gainstay
Verb
- (transitive) To stand against or in opposition to; resist; oppose.
- 1983, Bill McAdoo, Pre-Civil War Black Nationalism:Among the diversity of opinions that are entertained in regard to physical resistance, there are but a few found to gainstay that stern delcaration.
- 1998, Randall Roorda, Dramas of solitude: narratives of retreat in American nature writing:But this stance informs the way I regard the student essays I surveyed earlier, my belief that however challenging I may be in provoking interpretations of Thoreau, I ought not to gainstay my students' own Thoreauvian productions, ...
- 2004, William Hill, Wizard Sword:" ... Then I dare not gainstay you, Devin. I just wish to bring out the best in such a noble son of Zenn-Ra."
- (transitive) To deny (the right to); deprive (of).
- 1926, Theosophical Society (Madras, India), The Theosophist:... it was intended to be, a living fire of force in the world that cannot be gainstayed and which no storms can shake.
- 1998, Nancy Ann Watanabe, Love eclipsed: Joyce Carol Oates's Faustian moral vision:An illiterate woman, Mai-ch'en's wife is not gainstayed the benefit of the doubt.
