Upstay

Origin

From - + stay.

Full definition of upstay

Verb

1. (now rare) To sustain, support.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.xii:those two villeins, which her steps vpstayd,
  When her weake feete could scarcely her sustaine,
  And fading vitall powers gan to fade,
  Her forward still with torture did constraine ....
• 1820, The River Duddon A Series of Sonnets, XXVIII, Journey Renewed:Close to the vital seat of human clay;
  Glad meetings, tender partings, that upstay
• 1910, The Aeneid of Virgil as translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor:In front, a massive gateway threats the sky,
  And posts of solid adamant upstay
  An iron tower, firm-planted to defy
  All force, divine or human. Night and day,
• 1917, Henry Charles Beeching, The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, 246, The Tree of LifeLighten, O sword divine, to clear my way,
  And thou, O happy heart, upstay

Anagrams

• stay up