stag
/staɡ
/noun
1A male deer, especially a male red deer after its fifth year.Beyond it great beams of light lit up the depths of Glen Loyne and somewhere down below, red deer stags roared defiance at each other across the glen....
- Red deer stags greeted me on the ridge crest and a buzzard wheeled away over the corrie below.
- I camped high in the glen, with a golden eagle and a clutch of red deer stags for company.
1.1A turkeycock over one year old.Selective breeding has made turkey stags so broad-breasted, they cannot mate without crushing the female....
- With ten classes ranging from a stag over 11 kg, to a brace of seasonal turkeys and a butchers presentation class, the judge was given a difficult task.
- Mick Greenwood took the award for the best hen class while the prize for the best stag went to Jake Walford and the pullet class winner was Dewi Jones.
2 [usually as modifier] A social gathering attended by men only: a stag event...
- The action takes place on Hal's stag event, an all-day pub-crawl organised by his dour friend Mr Mac.
- But Lorillard's impudence, and the comfort it promised, did impress many men to order dinner jackets of their own for private stag events.
- I started with a Eurostar shuttle and since then I have done weddings, private hire, conferences and a stag weekend.
2.1chiefly North American A man who attends a social gathering unaccompanied by a female partner: they have a rule against stags...
- Now just 2% of visitors to Temple Bar are stags and hens, and 70% of drinkers there are Irish.
3 Stock Market, British A person who applies for shares in a new issue with a view to selling at once for a profit: stags made an average profit of £60 each
adverb North American
Without a female partner at a social gathering: a lot of boys went stag...
- ‘Most everyone's going stag and probably going to pick someone up, you know how it is,’ she shrugged.
- I refuse to go stag, especially with my ankle; I'd just be sitting on the sidelines the entire night.
- If even nice, quiet, very, very shy Natalie Pierce has a date then I mind as well give up now, go stag, and wear a sign that says ‘loser’ around my neck.
verb (stags, stagging, stagged) [with object]
1 Stock Market, British Buy (shares in a new issue) and sell them at once for a profit: they made profits from stagging each issue...
- When investors rediscover stagging - applying for shares in new (and typically low quality) companies with the intention of selling them at the first opportunity for a quick profit - then it's time to worry.
- The restriction could limit the opportunity for stagging the stock.
2North American informal Roughly cut (a garment, especially a pair of trousers) to make it shorter: (as adjective stagged) stagged jeans...
- Hels was a short, stocky man in a plaid jumper, stagged trousers and boots.
- The men looked alike at first; rough-looking, in their heavy boots, plaid shirts and stagged pants.
Origin
Middle English (as a noun): related to Old Norse steggr 'male bird', Icelandic steggi 'tomcat'.