to "stage"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Very familiar to me from reading but not, AFAICT, in OED or MW11. From World
War II:

1945 _United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific_ (Dept. of
the Army Historical Division) 174 [GB, not verified on paper]: The
unit...had moved forward from New Zealand expecting to stop at Aitape only
for staging.

It usually appears in the phrase "staging area" (OED 1945, no definition),
but the intrans. verb is also normal.

JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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