Entry · catalog no. 0503

stay

/ — /pending

verb · nationwide · 2026

✓ Verified

Marks something habitual and near-constant. "He stay on the phone" means he is on the phone all the time, not that he is on it now.

“She stay hungry.”

Origin & Attribution

A habitual marker of African American English, sitting alongside habitual be and completive done in a full aspect system. Attested throughout the Corpus of Regional African American Language and described in the linguistic literature on AAE aspect.

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

nationwide · 2026

Spoken by

nationwide

$STAYThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Rising

0 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

12/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

2026

in the culture

Recorded here

2026

point of first record

Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.

Hear it spoken

By region — how it actually sounds

@auntiereg

Atlanta, GA

@deltasoul

Memphis, TN

Contribute your pronunciation

Citations & Sources

■

Lisa J. Green, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction — book · 2002

submitted

■

Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL), University of Oregon — speech corpus · 2018

submitted

+ Cite a source