Word definition: station

Etimology


From Middle English stacioun, borrowed from Anglo-Norman estation, from Latin statiōnem, accusative of statiō (“standing, post, job, position”), whence also Italian stazione. Doublet of stagione. Cognate with Ancient Greek ἵστημι (hístēmi), στάσις (stásis), Old English standan (whence English stand).

noun


station (plural stations)

A stopping place.

A place where workers are stationed.

(Christianity) Any of the Stations of the Cross.

(Christianity) The Roman Catholic fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week, Wednesday and Friday, in memory of the council which condemned Christ, and of his passion.

(Christianity) A church in which the procession of the clergy halts on stated days to say stated prayers.

Standing; rank; position.

(Newfoundland) A harbour or cove with a foreshore suitable for a facility to support nearby fishing.

(surveying) Any of a sequence of equally spaced points along a path.

The particular place, or kind of situation, in which a species naturally occurs; a habitat.

(mining) An enlargement in a shaft or galley, used as a landing, or passing place, or for the accommodation of a pump, tank, etc.

Post assigned; office; the part or department of public duty which a person is appointed to perform; sphere of duty or occupation; employment.

(medicine) The position of the foetal head in relation to the distance from the ischial spines, measured in centimetres.

(obsolete) The fact of standing still; motionlessness, stasis.

(astronomy) The apparent standing still of a superior planet just before it begins or ends its retrograde motion.

Examples


The next station is Esperanza.

It's right across from the bus station.

From my station at the front door, I greeted every visitor.

All ships are on station, Admiral.

" […] Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you ten minutes, to get to your stations."

He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.

Collect a knife and fork from the cutlery station on the way to your table.

Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare.

The police station is opposite the fire station.

The waitress was at her station preparing three checks.

The station is part of a group of stations run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

She had a boyfriend at the station.

The dynamic tests at Wildenrath use continuous test tracks built on the site of a former Royal Air Force station that was vacated after the end of the Cold War.

I used to work at a radio station.

I used to listen to that radio station.

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around, / that the colt from old Regret had got away,

Tiring of sheep, he took work on cattle stations, mustering cattle on vast unfenced holdings, and looking for work ‘nigger-bossing’, or supervising Aboriginal station hands.

The romance of the gritty station owner in a crumpled Akubra, his kids educated from the remote homestead by the School of the Air, while triple-trailer road trains drag tornadoes of dust across the plains, creates a stirring idea of the modern-day pioneer battling against the elemental Outback.

It was my fate to commence my career in the medical service forty years ago in the presanitary days, long before the introduction of modern methods of diagnosis, at two of the most unhealthy stations in the whole of India — Bellary and Secunderabad.

So dyd Offa […] Deuoutly to vysyte all the hole stacyons of the cytee of Rome.

She had ambitions beyond her station.

The greater part have kept, I see, / Their station.

And they in France of the best rank and station

Moreover, by spending this day [Sunday] in religious exercises, we acquire new strength and resolution to perform God's will in our several stations the week following.

[…] the cross legs [are] moving or resting together, so that two are always in motion and two in station at the same time […]

Related words


synonyms

(broadcasting entity): (that broadcasts television) channel

(ground transport depot): sta (abbreviation), stn (abbreviation)

(military base): base, military base

(large sheep or cattle farm): farm, ranch

verb


station (third-person singular simple present stations, present participle stationing, simple past and past participle stationed) (transitive)

(usually passive) To put in place to perform a task.

To put in place to perform military duty.

Examples


The host stationed me at the front door to greet visitors.

I was stationed on the pier.

Watchmen are stationed continuously at each end of the bridge, and the main spans are patrolled twice during the night.

The Costa Rican's lofted corner exposed Arsenal's own problems with marking, and Berbatov, stationed right in the middle of goal, only needed to take a gentle amble back to find the space to glance past Vito Mannone

They stationed me overseas just as fighting broke out.

I was stationed at Fort Richie.

Data provided by Wiktionary