Etymology: < Old French estage (masculine) (modern French étage ) = Provençal estatge (also estatga feminine), Italian staggio station, dwelling (obsolete), support for a net, side of a ladder, etc. < popular Latin *staticum , < Latin stāre to stand (Old French ester , Provençal estar ). From the etymological meaning standing, station, standing place, were developed in Old French many special senses, which passed into Middle English; the only senses that have survived into modern French are ‘story of a building’ (= 1a) and certain figurative applications of this. Modern French stage , the ‘terms’ to be kept before admission to certain professions, is < medieval Latin stagium , < Old French estage . In Old French estage was taken as the etymological equivalent of Latin stadium , and used to render that word as denoting an ancient measure of distance (hence sense 7 below). Branch IV represents an English development of meaning, which seems to have begun about 1600, and for which it is not easy precisely to account. It may in some degree have been influenced by the notion of an etymological connection of the word with Latin stadium ; at any rate this notion is distinctly traceable in the medical use 11b.