dais
/deɪs/noun
Raised platform for speakers or honored guests
From Greek dais (Disk).
Lineage
The story
Picture a medieval hall: at one end, the important people sit above everyone else on a raised floor beside a high table. That platform was a dais, but its family tree begins with something much more portable—a Greek δίσκος, a disk or tray. Latin turned that round object into discus and, in Late Latin, into a table; French then carried the word into English around 1300 as deis. The word faded from ordinary English around 1600, survived in Scotland, and was revived by nineteenth-century antiquarians, as though an archaeologist had dusted it off beside a suit of armor. Its cousins still scatter across the language: disc, disk, discus, dish, desk, and French dais. Remember the image: a humble round tray gradually becomes the stage on which the honored person stands.
Modern usage
A personal name used in an affectionate slang entry for a notably fun, sociable girl
- Heard in
- informal internet slang
- See
- Urban Dictionary