Stave

//steɪv// name, noun, verb

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.
Noun
  1. 1
    One of a number of narrow strips of wood, or narrow iron plates, placed edge to edge to form the sides, covering, or lining of a vessel or structure; especially, one of the strips which form the sides of a cask, barrel, pail, etc.

    "For the Cherubims ſpread foorth their wings ouer the place of the Arke, and the Cherubims couered the Arke and the ſtaues thereof, aboue."

  2. 2
    a crosspiece between the legs of a chair wordnet
  3. 3
    One of the bars or rounds of a rack, rungs of a ladder, etc; one of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel
  4. 4
    one of several thin slats of wood forming the sides of a barrel or bucket wordnet
  5. 5
    A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.

    "Let us chaunt a passing stave / In honour of that hero brave."

Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    (music) the system of five horizontal lines on which the musical notes are written wordnet
  2. 7
    The set of five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or pointed; the staff.
  3. 8
    The initial consonant, consonant cluster, or vowel of a word which rhymes with another word with the same consonant or vowel in stave-rhyme. rare

    "Ley, in his work on the Metrical Forms of Hebrew Poetry, 1866, has taken too little notice of these frequently occurring alliteration staves; Lagarde communicated to me (8th Sept. 1846) his view of the stave-rhyme in the Book[…]"

  4. 9
    A sign, symbol or sigil, including rune or rune-like characters, used in Icelandic magic.
  5. 10
    A staff or walking stick.
Verb
  1. 1
    To fit or furnish with staves or rundles. transitive

    "vpon paine of death to bring it out and to ſtaue it"

  2. 2
    burst or force (a hole) into something wordnet
  3. 3
    To break in the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst. transitive, usually

    "to stave in a cask"

  4. 4
    furnish with staves wordnet
  5. 5
    To push, or keep off, as with a staff. transitive

    "The condition of a servant staves him off to a distance."

Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    To delay by force or craft; to drive away. transitive, usually

    "We ate grass in an attempt to stave off our hunger."

  2. 7
    To burst in pieces by striking against something. archaic, intransitive, rare

    "But Donald would not hear of that proposal at all, assuring the Prince that it was impossible for them to return to the land again, because the squall was against them, and that if they should steer for the rock the boat would undoubtedly stave to pieces and all of them behoved to be drowned, for there was no [fol. 284.] possibility of saving any one life amongst them upon such a dangerous rock, where the sea was dashing with the utmost violence."

  3. 8
    To walk or move rapidly. dated, dialectal, intransitive

    "He turned and blundered out of the house, stumbling over a chair and trying a wrong door on the way, and went staving down the street as if afraid to look behind him."

  4. 9
    To suffer, or cause to be lost by breaking the cask.

    "All the […]wine in the city hath been staved."

  5. 10
    To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron.

    "to stave lead, or the joints of pipes into which lead has been run"

Etymology

Etymology 1

Back-formation from staves, the plural of staff.

Etymology 2

Back-formation from staves, the plural of staff.

Etymology 3

Various origins: * Borrowed from North German Stave, an occupational surname for a judge or church official, from Middle Low German Staf (“staff”). * Borrowed from Norwegian Stave, a habitational surname from five farmsteads in the country. * Americanized form of Polish Staw, a Jewish Ashkenazi surname.

Next best steps

Mini challenge

Unscramble this word: stave