1. [n]  a section or portion of a journey or course; "then we embarked on the second stage of our Caribbean cruise"
2. [n]  a large platform on which people can stand and can be seen by an audience; "he clambered up onto the stage and got the actors to help him into the box"
3. [n]  a small platform on a microscope where the specimen is mounted for examination
4. [n]  a large coach-and-four formerly used to carry passengers and mail on regular routes between towns; "we went out of town together by stage about ten or twelve miles"
5. [n]  the theater as a profession (usually"the stage"); "an early movie simply showed a long kiss by two actors of the contemporary stage"
6. [n]  any scene regarded as a setting for exhibiting or doing something; "All the world's a stage"--Shakespeare; "it set the stage for peaceful negotiations"
7. [n]  any distinct time period in a sequence of events; "we are in a transitional stage in which many former ideas must be revised or rejected"
8. [n]  a specific identifiable position in a continuum or series or especially in a process; "a remarkable degree of frankness"; "at what stage are the social sciences?"
9. [v]  plan, organize, and carry out (an event)
10. [v]  perform (a play), esp. on a stage; "we are going to stage `Othello'"

Stage
Stage

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1. \Stage\, n. [OF. estage, F. ['e]tage, (assumed) LL.
   staticum, from L. stare to stand. See {Stand}, and cf.
   {Static}.]
   1. A floor or story of a house. [Obs.] --Wyclif.
   2. An elevated platform on which an orator may speak, a play
      be performed, an exhibition be presented, or the like.
   3. A floor elevated for the convenience of mechanical work,
      or the like; a scaffold; a staging.
   4. A platform, often floating, serving as a kind of wharf.
   5. The floor for scenic performances; hence, the theater; the
      playhouse; hence, also, the profession of representing
      dramatic compositions; the drama, as acted or exhibited.
      Knights, squires, and steeds, must enter on the stage.
                                                  --Pope.
      Lo! Where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Holds its
      warped mirror to a gaping age.              --C. Sprague.
   6. A place where anything is publicly exhibited; the scene of
      any noted action or carrer; the spot where any remarkable
      affair occurs.
            When we are born, we cry that we are come To this
            stage of fools.                       --Shak.
            Music and ethereal mirth Wherewith the stage of air
            and earth did ring.                   --Miton.
   7. The platform of a microscope, upon which an object is
      placed to be viewed. See Illust. of {Microscope}.
   8. A place of rest on a regularly traveled road; a stage
      house; a station; a place appointed for a relay of horses.
   9. A degree of advancement in a journey; one of several
      portions into which a road or course is marked off; the
      distance between two places of rest on a road; as, a stage
      of ten miles.
            A stage . . . signifies a certain distance on a
            road.                                 --Jeffrey.
            He traveled by gig, with his wife, his favorite
            horse performing the journey by easy stages.
                                                  --Smiles.
   10. A degree of advancement in any pursuit, or of progress
       toward an end or result.
             Such a polity is suited only to a particular stage
             in the progress of society.          --Macaulay.
   11. A large vehicle running from station to station for the
       accomodation of the public; a stagecoach; an omnibus. ``A
       parcel sent you by the stage.'' --Cowper.
             I went in the sixpenny stage.        --Swift.
   12. (Biol.) One of several marked phases or periods in the
       development and growth of many animals and plants; as,
       the larval stage; pupa stage; z[oe]a stage.
   {Stage box}, a box close to the stage in a theater.
   {Stage carriage}, a stagecoach.
   {Stage door}, the actor's and workmen's entrance to a
      theater.
   {Stage lights}, the lights by which the stage in a theater is
      illuminated.
   {Stage micrometer}, a graduated device applied to the stage
      of a microscope for measuring the size of an object.
   {Stage wagon}, a wagon which runs between two places for
      conveying passengers or goods.
   {Stage whisper}, a loud whisper, as by an actor in a theater,
      supposed, for dramatic effect, to be unheard by one or
      more of his fellow actors, yet audible to the audience; an
      aside.
   

2. \Stage\, v. t.
   To exhibit upon a stage, or as upon a stage; to display
   publicly. --Shak.
   

1. The elevation of a water surface above or below an established datum or reference.
2. Elevation of water surface above an arbitrary datum, such as bed level, low water, mean sea level, or mean lower low water.