stairwayn.

1767 T. Hutchinson Hist. Province Massachusetts-Bay, 1691–1750 (1795) II. iv. 387 Officers had planted themselves at the head of the stair-way with loaded carbines.

1847 W. H. Prescott Hist. Conquest Peru II. iv. v. 181 Running down to the first landing on the stairway.

1872 M. Collins Princess Clarice II. 92 He walked up the grim stairway of the hotel.

1892 Boyle County of Durham 261 They were reached by a stairway from the triforium.

1906 M. Bowen Viper of Milan xx It [the door] opened immediately on a black marble stairway.

c1820 S. Rogers Jovasse in Italy (1838) 23 His ancient carbine from his shoulder slung, His axe to hew a stair-way in the ice.

1894 Westm. Gaz. 1 Jan. 2/1 Here the old Duke of Bridgewater's canal makes junction with the Ship Canal by two long stairways of locks.

1904 Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 12 570 The tread of the steps in the long stairway..greatly lengthened in down-canyon order.

1957 J. K. Charlesworth Quaternary Era I. xiii. 297 Cirques in almost all glaciated regions frequently occur in tiers, the ‘tandom cirque’ or ‘cirque stairway’.., each step often with its rock-basin and tarn.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XIX. 641/1 The establishment of runoff after wastage of the ice has occurred will lead to a series of waterfalls or cascades at the site of each riser in the stairway.

1879 E. Arnold Light of Asia viii. 229 Make golden stair-ways of your weakness.

1886 C. A. Briggs Messianic Prophecy i. 26 The prophets as an order of..teachers constitute a grand stairway.

1909 Edinb. Rev. July 40 Thus the soul ranges up and down the stairway of existence.