Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to stay over

to stay over

70 3.0
Sleep at someone else's home for the night
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : quedarse a dormir
  • Sometimes, if the drive was long, we stayed over, either with friends or at an inn.
  • stay over last night
  • stay over with friends
  • stay over tonight

And the night before the surgery, Bob is staying over at my house because the surgery was in a Boston hospital.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • We see each other Wednesday nights, and usually he stays over until Thursday.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • We've got Mark, Poppy and Sean staying over tonight.

  • And so we planned on staying over at a hotel on Tuesday.

  • Can you stay over tonight?

    I Used to Be Funny (2024)

  • I can stay over again tonight if you want.

    It Never Sleeps (2014)

  • I'll probably stay over, okay?

    Memory (2022)

  • "You know, Fred, you can stay over if you like," she said.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • In this memory of Debbie, it's a Friday night and I'm staying over at her house.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Why don't you just stay over?

    The Cathedral (2022)

  • Can you stay over tonight at my house?

Synonyms

to stay at
vsto stay over
450 2.0

To live somewhere for a short time, like a hotel or a friend's house

is a single-night visit by invitation rather than temporary residence
to sleep over
vsto stay over
  • Informal
63 2.8

To stay at someone else's house for the night

is used mainly for nights spent by invitation rather than general temporary lodging
to lay over
vsto stay over
  • US
4.2

To stop during a journey and stay somewhere, often overnight, before you continue

is a night spent as a social guest rather than a travel interruption

Antonyms

to leave
∞ 1.0

To go away from a place, person, or group

to go home
∞ 1.0

To return to the place where you live

How Long

to move in
415 1.8
to stay over
  • Informal
70 3.0
to stop by
  • Informal
494 2.5

Surface Forms

stay over infinitive
stayed over past
stayed over past participle
staying over present participle
stays over third person singular

Morphology

stay + over

The meaning 'to spend the night somewhere' is directly and compositionally derived from 'stay' (to remain) plus 'over' (indicating duration/continuation, as in 'overnight'). This verb+particle pattern is common and the sense is predictable for learners who know both constituents, so a B1 learner would readily infer the overnight meaning.

Etymology

Stay over comes from a simple image: you stay and you are over someone else's home for the night. So it means 'to spend the night' at another person's home instead of going home.