dais — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A raised platform in a room for a high table, a seat of honour, a throne, or other dignified occupancy, such as ancestral statues; a similar platform supporting a lectern, pulpit, etc., which may be used to speak from.

   Examples

   More examples (6)

   Many of the figures, clad in mail from head to foot, were ranged above the dais; and she could almost fancy a skeleton form beneath, or that wild and fearful eyes glared through the apertures of the closed visors.

   At last we came to the head of the cave, where there was a rock daïs almost exactly similar to the one on which we had been so furiously attacked, a fact that proved to me that these daïs must have been used as altars, probably for the celebration of religious ceremonies, and more especially of rites connected with the interment of the dead. On either side of this daïs were passages leading, Billali informed me, to other caves full of dead bodies.

   Babbitt's party politely edged through them and into the whitewashed room, at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush throne and a pine altar painted watery blue, as used nightly by the Grand Masters and Supreme Potentates of innumerable lodges.

   A dais wife is a woman who sits at a round table with the wives of other men who are seated on the dais. Her husband sits on the dais, raised above the other people in the room, including his wife.

   The daises of the Northwest Colonnade and the South Temple of the Warriors, the Mercado benches, and the benches of the Southeast Patio of the Iglesia are other instances where large groups of individuals in processions are shown.

   “We gathered all the people that love you into this one room. And then when we saw all the empty chairs, we decided to drag some randos in off the street to fill them!” [drum plays rim shot] [laughter] “So many illustrious guests here on the dais tonight. And also Colin Robinson.” [rim shot] [laughter] “He got me, I got got.”

2. A bench, a settle, a pew.

   Usage

   • Northern
   • UK usage
   • Historical

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   [page 211] The Mer-man he stept o'er ae deas, / And he has steppit over three: / "O maiden, pledge me faith and troth! / O Marstig's daughter, gang wi' me!" […] [pages 213–214] Notes on The Mer-man. […] I remember having seen in the hall of the ruined castle of Elan Stalker, in the district of Appin, an old oaken deas, which was so contrived as to serve for a sittee; at meal-times the back was turned over, rested upon the arms, and became a table; and at night the seat was raised up, and displayed a commodious bed for four persons, two and two, feet to feet, to sleep in. I was told, that this kind of deas was formerly common in the halls of great houses, where such œconomy, with respect to bed-room, was very necessary.

   DAIS, Dess, Deas […] A long board, seat or bench erected against a wall. […] A pew in a church

3. An elevated table in a hall at which important people were seated; a high table.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   As the principal table was always placed upon a dais, it began very soon, by a natural abuse of words, to be called itself a Dais, and people were said to sit at the dais, instead of at the table upon the dais.

4. The canopy over an altar, etc.

Noun

1. a platform raised above the surrounding level to give prominence to the person on it

   Synonyms

   podiumpulpitrostrumambostumpsoapbox

   Broader terms

   platform