station

plural stations

1. A stopping place.
   1. A regular stopping place for ground transportation.

      The next station is Esperanza.

   2. A ground transportation depot.

      It's right across from the bus station.

      Synonyms: sta, stn

   3. A place where one stands or stays or is assigned to stand or stay.

      All ships are on station, Admiral.

      3 more examples

      From my station at the front door, I greeted every visitor.

      '[…] Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks, and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you ten minutes, to get to your stations.'

      1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Last Night”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 80

      He walked. To the corner of Hamilton Place and Picadilly, and there stayed for a while, for it is a romantic station by night. The vague and careless rain looked like threads of gossamer silver passing across the light of the arc-lamps.

      1922, Michael Arlen, “Ep./1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

   4. A place where some object is provided.

      Collect a knife and fork from the cutlery station on the way to your table.

   5. USA gas station, service station.

      Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare.

      2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, New York Times, retrieved 31 Oct 2012

2. A place where workers are stationed.
   1. An official building from which police or firefighters operate.

      The police station is opposite the fire station.

   2. A place where one performs a task or where one is on call to perform a task.

      The waitress was at her station preparing three checks.

      1 more example

      The station is part of a group of stations run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

   3. A military base.

      She had a boyfriend at the station.

      1 more example

      The dynamic tests at Wildenrath use continuous test tracks built on the site of a former Royal Air Force station that was vacated after the end of the Cold War.

      2023 November 29, Philip Haigh, “New Piccadilly Line trains put to the test”, in RAIL, number 997, page 26

      Synonyms: base, military base

   4. A place used for broadcasting radio or television; the broadcasting entity itself.

      I used to work at a radio station.

      1 more example

      I used to listen to that radio station.

      Synonyms: channel

   5. computingA device communicating over a network; a host.

      An Econet network is made up of a number of stations.

      1 more example

      When entering a LOAD/SAVE/FORMAT, etc command you not only had to identify the destination of the data (ie, microdrive, network or RS232), but the number of the drive or station too.

      2012, Colin Woodcock, The ZX Spectrum on Your PC, page 16

   6. AustraliaNew ZealandA very large sheep or cattle farm.

      1993, Kay Walsh, Joy W. Hooton, Dowker, L. O., entry in Australian Autobiographical Narratives: 1850-1900, page 69, Tiring of sheep, he took work on cattle stations, mustering cattle on vast unfenced holdings, and looking for work ‘nigger-bossing’, or supervising Aboriginal station hands.

      2 more examples

      There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around, / that the colt from old Regret had got away,

      1890, A. B. Paterson, The Man From Snowy River

      The romance of the gritty station owner in a crumpled Akubra, his kids educated from the remote homestead by the School of the Air, while triple-trailer road trains drag tornadoes of dust across the plains, creates a stirring idea of the modern-day pioneer battling against the elemental Outback.

      2003, Margo Daly, Anne Dehne, Rough Guide to Australia, page 654

      Synonyms: farm, ranch

   7. historicalIn British India, the place where the English officials of a district, or the officers of a garrison (not in a fortress) reside.

      When a man is absolutely alone in a Station he runs a certain risk of falling into evil ways.

      1889, Rudyard Kipling, “A Wayside Comedy”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 60

      1 more example

      It was my fate to commence my career in the medical service forty years ago in the presanitary days, long before the introduction of modern methods of diagnosis, at two of the most unhealthy stations in the whole of India — Bellary and Secunderabad.

      1881, International Congress of Medicine, Transactions of the 1st, 2nd, 4th-17th Congress, page 541

3. ChristianityAny of the Stations of the Cross.
4. ChristianityThe Roman Catholic fast of the fourth and sixth days of the week, Wednesday and Friday, in memory of the council which condemned Christ, and of his passion.
5. ChristianityA church in which the procession of the clergy halts on stated days to say stated prayers.

   So dyd Offa[…]Deuoutly to vysyte all the hole stacyons of the cytee of Rome.

   1513, Henry Bradshaw, The Life of Saint Werburge of Chester

6. Standing; rank; position.

   She had ambitions beyond her station.

   2 more examples

   The greater part have kept, I see, / Their station.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   And they in France of the best rank and station

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]

7. NewfoundlandA harbour or cove with a foreshore suitable for a facility to support nearby fishing.
8. geographyAny of a sequence of equally spaced points along a path.
9. biologyThe particular place, or kind of situation, in which a species naturally occurs; a habitat.
10. businessAn enlargement in a shaft or galley, used as a landing, or passing place, or for the accommodation of a pump, tank, etc.
11. Post assigned; office; the part or department of public duty which a person is appointed to perform; sphere of duty or occupation; employment.

    Moreover, by spending this day [Sunday] in religious exercises, we acquire new strength and resolution to perform God's will in our several stations the week following.

    1704, Robert Nelson, A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England, New, Revised and Corrected edition, published 1837, page 18

12. medicineThe position of the foetal head in relation to the distance from the ischial spines, measured in centimetres.
13. obsoleteThe fact of standing still; motionlessness, stasis.

    […]the cross legs [are] moving or resting together, so that two are always in motion and two in station at the same time[…]

    1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, III.5

14. astronomyThe apparent standing still of a superior planet just before it begins or ends its retrograde motion.
15. slangcard gamesA calling station.

present singular third person stations · participle present stationing · participle past stationed · past stationed

1. passivetransitiveusuallyTo put in place to perform a task.

   I was stationed on the pier.

   4 more examples

   The host stationed me at the front door to greet visitors.

   Watchmen are stationed continuously at each end of the bridge, and the main spans are patrolled twice during the night.

   1950 March, H. A. Vallance, “On Foot Across the Forth Bridge”, in Railway Magazine, page 149

   In 1923, the first of H. P. M. Beames's massive 0-8-4 tanks appeared in South Wales, for which area they had been mainly designed, and about twenty were usually stationed in the area, being freely used on both passenger and freight duties, until their gradual supersession by ex-L.N.W.R. 0-8-0s began about 1937.

   1957 May 28, D. S. Barrie, “From Abergavenny to Merthyr—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 346

   The Costa Rican's lofted corner exposed Arsenal's own problems with marking, and Berbatov, stationed right in the middle of goal, only needed to take a gentle amble back to find the space to glance past Vito Mannone

   2012 November 10, Amy Lawrence, “Fulham's Mark Schwarzer saves late penalty in dramatic draw at Arsenal”, in The Guardian

2. transitiveTo put in place to perform military duty.

   I was stationed at Fort Richie.

   1 more example

   They stationed me overseas just as fighting broke out.

3. slangtransitivecard gamesTo play in the manner of a calling station.