Stay awhile that we may end the sooner.

In this saying ‘stay’ means pause. It proposes stopping for a short while so that a task can be finished sooner, on the reasoning that a pause to think, plan or correct a mistake saves more time than it takes. Because it is phrased with ‘we’, it reads as a shared suggestion among people working together rather than an instruction to one person.

The pause has to be used for something: the saying does not claim that every halt shortens the work, and stopping without a purpose simply adds delay. It is misapplied when momentum matters or when the time available is fixed and short. It also differs from a plain warning against haste: rather than telling someone to slow down throughout, it recommends one deliberate break in order to finish sooner.

Its present-day currency is not established, but someone in a joint task might use it when the group is pushing ahead in confusion, for instance a team making repeated errors, a family packing in a rush or partners working without a plan. Its ‘we’ makes it a proposal rather than a reproach, which can make it easier to accept. Others under a deadline may still hear it as stalling, so it lands best when the speaker says what the pause is for.