steadyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[stead 词源字典]
stead: [OE] Stead ‘place’ comes from a prehistoric Germanic *stadiz, which also produced German statt ‘place’ and stadt ‘town’. This in turn went back to Indo-European *stətís, a derivative of the base *stə -, *stā- ‘stand’, which also produced English stand and Latin stāre ‘stand’ (source of English state, statue, etc). The expression in the stead of ‘in place of’, and its lexicalized form instead, originated in the 13th century, modelled on Old French en lieu de.
=> stand, state, statue, steady[stead etymology, stead origin, 英语词源]
stead (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English stede "place, position; standing, firmness, stability, fixity," from Proto-Germanic *stadiz (cognates: Old Saxon stedi, Old Norse staðr "place, spot; stop, pause; town," Swedish stad, Dutch stede "place," Old High German stat, German Stadt "town," Gothic staþs "place"), from PIE *steti-, suffixed form of root *sta- "to stand" (see stet). Related to stand.

Now chiefly in compounds or phrases. Meaning "assistance, use, benefit, advantage" is from c. 1300. Meaning "frame on which a bed is laid" is from c. 1400. The German use of Stadt for "town, city" "is a late development from c. 1200 when the term began to replace Burg" [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]. The Steads was 16c. English for "the Hanseatic cities."