below stairs

== English == === Alternative forms === below-stairs, belowstairs === Etymology === From below +‎ stairs. === Prepositional phrase === below stairs (dated) On a floor lower than the one a speaker currently occupies; below the main floor of a multi-floor building. Synonym: downstairs Antonyms: above stairs, upstairs (UK, historical) In or pertaining to the lowest levels of a large house where the house staff work and are accommodated, contrasted with above stairs where the owning family reside. a. 1631, John Donne, letter to H. Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour written by John Donne, London: Richard Marriot, 1651, pp. 158-159,[3] My daughter Constance is at this time with me; or the emptinesse of the town, hath made me, who otherwise live upon the almes of others, a houskeeper, for a moneth; and so she is my servant below stairs, and my companion above: 1972, Robertson Davies, The Manticore, Toronto: New Canadian Library, 2015, Part 2, Chapter 1,[4] Children always lived closer to the servants than their elders, and Caroline and I never knew where we stood with anybody, and sometimes found ourselves hostages in dark, below-stairs intrigues. (by extension) Common, vulgar. (UK, historical, as noun) The areas of a large house in which house staff work, or the staff that work there. ==== Translations ====