Pl. stories, storeys. Forms: 5 storye, 6 storie, (storrie, store), 7– storey, ? 4, 5– story. [First in AL. form historia; hence prob. the same word as STORY sb.1, though the development of sense is obscure.

1

  Possibly historia as an architectural term may originally have denoted a tier of painted windows or of sculptures on the front of a building: see STORY sb.1 8, and cf. the Latin quot. 1398 below and sense 2.

2

  The current view that the word is a. OF. *estoree (f. estorer to build, furnish: see STORE v.) is untenable on account of the AL. form historia (from 12th c.).

3

  The following are examples of the Anglo-Latin use of historia in the architectural sense:—

4

a. 1200.  Hugo Candidus, Cœnob. Burgensis Hist., 93, in Sparke, Hist. Angl. Scriptt. (1723), In suo etiam tempore [sc. W. de Waterville, 1155–75] tres hystoriæ magistræ turris erectæ sunt.

5

a. 1300.  Gesta Sacristarum, in Arnold, Mem. St. Edmund’s Abbey (Rolls), II. 291. Qui [Abbot Sampson 1135–1211] tempore officii sui pro majori parte chorum consummavit unam istoriam in majori turre ad ostium occidentali.

6

1339–40.  Ely Sacrist Rolls (1907), II. 96. Pro fenestris superioris istoriæ novi operis.

7

1398.  in Hist. Dunelm. Script. tres (Surtees), p. clxxxi. Supra quodlibet studium erit unum modicum et securum archewote, supra quod, spacio competenti interposito, erit una historia octo fenestrarum … et desuper istam historiam fenestrarum erunt honesta alours et bretesmontz batellata et kirnellata.]

8

  1.  Each of the stages or portions one above the other of which a building consists; a room or set of rooms on one floor or level.

9

  In this use synonymous with FLOOR sb. 5; but while in England the term FIRST-FLOOR is applied to the floor above the ground floor, the numbering of ‘stories’ (so named) usually begins with the ground floor, so that the ‘first-floor’ is identical with the ‘second story,’ and ‘a house of one story’ has a ground-floor only. A different usage is shown in quot. 1850, and appears to be not wholly obsolete.

10

  Quot. a. 1400, though the reading is app. the scribe’s conjectural emendation of an obscure passage, may perh. be taken as attesting the existence of the sb. at the date of the MS.; the passage was prob. supposed to refer to the addition of ‘stories’ or upper stages to towers.

11

a. 1400.  R. Gloucester’s Chron., 3756 (Harl. MS.). Hii bygonne her heye tounes strengþy [Cotton MS. & strengþede] vaste aboute, Her castles & storys [Cotton MS. & astori], þat hii mygte be ynne in doute.

12

a. 1490.  Botoner, Itin. (Nasmith, 1778), 282. Turris Sci Stephani Bristoll … habet 4 storyes, et ibi in quarta storia sunt campanæ. In superiori historia tres orbæ in qualibet panella.

13

1569.  Stocker, trans. Diod. Sic., III. viii. 113 b. He caused an engine to be made called Helepolis,… in which were .ix. stories or sellers deuided one from another with planchers of wood.

14

1585.  Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 181. Tristega,… an house of three sollers, floores, stories or lofts one ouer another.

15

1590.  Lucar, Lucarsolace, I. xxi. 34. By the art … you may tell … what space is betwene storie and storie in any house or other building.

16

1600.  J. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, VIII. 307. It is built very stately … and is of three stories high.

17

1625.  Bacon, Ess., Of Building (Arb.), 552–3. This vpon the Second Story, Vpon the Ground Story, a Faire Gallery…: And vpon the Third Story likewise, an Open Gallery.

18

1672.  Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 39. Annoyances incident to such as dwell in the middle story.

19

1693.  Dryden, Juvenal, iii. 326. Thy own third Story smoaks.

20

1723.  Present State of Russia, I. 43. All the Inhabitants of Petersbourg who had Houses but one Story high.

21

1741.  P. Tailfer, etc. Narr. Georgia, 107. The Orphan-house … has two Stories besides Cellars and Garrets.

22

1763.  Museum Rust. (ed. 2), I. 76. The granary … consists of seven stories of floors.

23

1766.  Entick, London, IV. 360. The basement story is very massy.

24

1773.  G. A. Stevens, Trip to Portsmouth, ii. 20. Three story is na height at all—my town hoose at bonny Edingburgh is up the aught story.

25

1815.  Scott, Guy M., iii. The … narrative … was interrupted by the voice of some one ascending the stairs from the kitchen story.

26

1819.  Shelley, Lett. to T. L. Peacock, 26 Jan., Sel. Lett. (1882), 95. The houses [in Pompeii] have only one story, and the apartments … are very lofty.

27

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. V. iii. A Brigand Court-Martial establishes itself in the subterranean stories of the Castle of Avignon.

28

1840.  Dickens, Barn. Rudge, i. With its overhanging storeys, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway.

29

1850.  Parker, Gloss. Archit. (ed. 5), I. 447. In domestic and palatial architecture the stories are thus enumerated from the lowest upwards. Basement or underground story…. Ground story or ground-floor…. First-story…. Then follow second, third, and so on.

30

1852.  Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xxxii. A wide verandah of two storeys running round every part of the house.

31

1864.  C. Geikie, Life in Woods, vii. 132. A wooden schoolhouse … a single story high.

32

1874.  Ruskin, Fors Clav., IV. xlvi. 222. The little house … having … two windows over the shop, in the second story.

33

1899.  Daily Chron., 24 Jan. The inhabitants have taken refuge in the upper storeys of the houses.

34

  b.  transf. and fig. Anything compared to a story of a building; one of a series of stages or divisions lying horizontally one over the other.

35

1625.  Massinger, New Way, IV. i. Not the … feare of what can fall on me hereafter, Shall make me studie ought but your aduancement, One story higher. An Earle! if gold can do it.

36

a. 1631.  Donne, 80 Serm., ii. (1640), 14. God shall raise thee peece by peece, into a spirituall building; And after one Story of Creation, and another of Vocation, [etc.].

37

1648.  J. Beaumont, Psyche, XXIV. clxxx. If Lucifer had never walk’d upon Complete Felicitie’s transcendent Stories,… His Loss had finite been.

38

1687.  A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., II. 40. Here you may see a very lovely Cascade of nine or ten Stories.

39

1693.  Evelyn, De La Quint. Compl. Gard., Refl. Agric., 67. The Leaves … grow upon the Boughs Chequerwise, in little Stories or Steps at a small distance from each other.

40

1727.  A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Indies, I. xxxi. 384. His Effigie is … carried … in Procession mounted on a Coach four Stories high.

41

1727.  Pope, etc., Art of Sinking, xiii. 74. A Rhetorical Chest of Drawers, consisting of three Stories.

42

1762–71.  H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), III. 199. He painted in an age when the women erected edifices of three stories on their heads.

43

1763.  Mills, Pract. Husb., IV. 354. Three branches should be left … in the circumference of the tree, to form what is called the first story. At three feet above them, three other branches are left…. The tree is to be formed into stories, in this manner, up to the top.

44

1768.  Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 545. To try how all the principles and precepts of religion, morality, and common prudence, in several stories supported by one another, may be rationally erected.

45

1826.  J. T. Smith, Bk. for Rainy Day (1845), 238. Among the old dandies of this description of wig we may class Mr. Saunders Welch,… he had nine stories.

46

1842.  Tennyson, Will Waterproof, 70. High over roaring Temple-bar, And set in Heaven’s third story, I look at all things … thro’ a kind of glory.

47

1874.  Aldrich, Prud. Palfrey, xi. (1885), 172. It is so easy to add another story to the high opinion which other people have of you.

48

  c.  The or one’s upper story: jocularly used for the head as the seat of the mind or intellect.

49

1699.  Bentley, Phalaris, 304. He … must have Brains … as well as Eyes in his Head. A man that has that Furniture in his upper Story, will discover [etc.].

50

1771.  Smollett, Humphry Cl., 10 June, iii. What you imagine to be the … light of grace, I take to be a deceitful vapour, glimmering through a crack in your upper story.

51

1817.  Keats, Lett., Wks. 1889, III. 57. By this means, in a week or so, I became not over capable in my upper stories.

52

a. 1837.  John Scott, in Lockhart, Scott (1837), III. xi. 351. His neighbour … cast many a curious sidelong glance at him, evidently suspecting that all was not right with the upper story.

53

1884.  Saxe Holm, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 88/1. I wuz born weak in th’ upper story.

54

  2.  Each of a number of tiers or rows (of orders, columns, window mullions or lights, etc.) disposed horizontally one above another.

55

1412.  [see CLERESTORY].

56

1449.  in Cal. Proc. Chanc. Q. Eliz. (1830), II. Pref. 54. Uppon þe furste flore in þe second story … shullen be xviij wyndowes haunsed.

57

1518–9.  Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1904), 302. Paid for makyng of a fote of glas in the upper store in the Middyll Ile, iiij d.

58

1564.  in Willis & Clark, Cambridge (1886), II. 569. Item for scoweryng and newe trimmyng lower stories of olde yron at ijs. vjd. the storie, xjs.

59

1624.  Wotton, Archit., I. 39. Where more of these Orders then one, shalbe set in seuerall Stories or Contignations, there must bee an exquisite care, to place the Columnes precisely, one ouer another.

60

1663.  Gerbier, Counsel, 36. It stands so much higher, as … the third story of Columns.

61

1811.  Milner, Eccles. Archit. Eng., Pref. p. xv. The mullions of these windows, being continued down to the bottom of their story.

62

1849.  Ruskin, Seven Lamps, v. § 13. 148. The side of that church has three stories of arcade.

63

a. 1878.  Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit. (1879), I. 88. The capitals which prevail in the upper storeys of the choir … I cannot think so early.

64

  3.  Comb.: story box, one of a series of boxes (for keeping bees) arranged one over the other (cf. STORIFY v.); story post, rod (see quots. 1842); † story wig, one with several rows of curls.

65

1780.  J. Keys, Pract. Bee-Master, § 170. 70. By keeping Bees both in *story and collateral boxes at the same time, I have … found [etc.].

66

1663.  Gerbier, Counsel, 67. Oaken Carcasse, ground plates nine inches one way, seven inches the other; *Story Posts backwards nine inches one way and six inches the other.

67

1842.  Gwilt, Archit., Gloss., Story Posts, upright timbers disposed in the story of a building for supporting the superincumbent part of the exterior wall through the medium of a beam over them; they are chiefly used in sheds and work-shops.

68

1823.  P. Nicholson, Pract. Builder, 199. The *Story-rod is a rod of wood, equal in length to the height of the stairs.

69

1842.  Gwilt, Archit., Gloss., Story Rod, one used in setting up a staircase, equal in length to the height of the story, and divided into as many parts as there are intended to be steps in the staircase, so that they may be measured and distributed with accuracy.

70

1826.  J. T. Smith, Bk. for Rainy Day (1845), 238. The earliest engraved portraits of Dr. Johnson exhibit a wig with five rows of curls,… commonly called ‘a *story wig.’

71