Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

      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.