stave

Etymology

It is from English a back-formation from staves, the old plural of staff,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} with the usual change of final -f- to medial -v-, as in leaf and leaves.^[3] The OED calls it an inferred singular and compares earlier inflected singular forms with the voiced consonant, chiefly after prepositions, such as staue;^[9] Skeat likewise saw it as a form of the base noun, due to the Middle English dative singular and the plural.^[11] The base is from Old English stæf (“walking stick, pole, rod”), plural stafas, from Proto-Germanic *stab-.^[3] The verb comes from the noun by conversion,^[9][4][3][8] and the OED compares still earlier uses, from about 1400 and 1507, formally from the base noun.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The singular is first sure in 1584, in Hakluyt, for a length of wood cut to make a bow.^[9] The OED notes that instances of the plural staves are hard to allocate between this word and the base noun, and other dictionaries date it differently: Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the 13th century,^[7] Dictionary.com 1125–75,^[12] and Hoad the 14th century,^[5] while Etymonline and Barnhart date the barrel sense to 1750.^[3][4] Barnhart finds the plural for the rungs of a ladder about 1175, and staves before 1325 and before 1398.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word took over from the plural of staff the senses of a stick or rod (1598) and a rung or crossbar (1659).^[9] The best-known sense, one of the strips that form the side of a barrel, is recorded from 1679 in the revised OED,^[9] and the word spread to other narrow strips: boards (1823), upright timbers (1836) and the stiffening strips in garments (1852).^[9] Hoad dates the sense "verse, stanza" to the 17th century, and the set of lines for musical notation to the 18th,^[5] which Cresswell puts in the early 19th.^[13] The sense "alliterating letter" in Old English verse is from the late 19th century,^[8] and the upright planks of the Norwegian stave church, a term translating stavkirke, are recorded from the early 20th.^[8] The verb first meant to fit with a staff or handle (1542), while Etymonline finds "to fit with staves" implied in staving in the early 15th century.^[9][3] From about 1595 it meant to break up a cask, and it was used of destroying wine in this way by 1615;^[9][4] Johnson (1755) notes that "to break in pieces" was used originally of barrels.^[14] By extension came breaking a hole in a boat, from before 1665, and crushing in generally, from 1716, chiefly with in.^[9] Stave off has another image: to beat away with a staff, as with a dog in bear- or bull-baiting (1633),^[9][10] or perhaps a person beset by wolves or dogs,^[3] and hence to keep something bad at a distance.^[8] A noun for a crushing blow followed in 1819.^[9] In dialect, Burns has dung in staves, broken to pieces, and a stave was a short song in Scotland, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, East Anglia and the Isle of Wight, as in to tip a stave, to sing.^[15]

Timeline

• 1542 – verb, to fit with a staff or handle.^[9][4]
• 1584 – noun, a length of wood to be made into a bow, in Hakluyt.^[9]
• c. 1595 – verb, to break up a cask.^[9][4]
• 1598 – noun, a rod or stick, especially as a weapon.^[9]
• 1627 – verb, to fit a cask or bucket with staves, in John Smith.^[9]
• 1633 – stave off, to beat off, as a dog in baiting.^[9] Etymonline dates it to the 1620s.^[3]
• 1659 – noun, a rung or crossbar.^[9]
• before 1665 – verb, to break a hole in a boat.^[9] Etymonline dates stave in to 1748.^[3]
• 1679 – noun, a strip of wood forming the side of a barrel.^[9] Etymonline and Barnhart date it to 1750.^[3][4]
• 17th century – noun, a verse or stanza.^[5]
• 1819 – noun, a crushing blow.^[9]
• 1852 – noun, a stiffening strip in a garment.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. One of the narrow strips of wood that form the sides of a barrel, tub or similar vessel.^{[7][16][2][9]}
2. A wooden stick; a staff or cudgel.^{[7][16][2][9]}
3. A rung of a ladder or chair, or a similar bar or slat.^{[16][2][12][9]}
4. A set of verses; a stanza.^{[7][16][2][17]}
5. (music) A set of lines on which notes are written; a staff.^[17][16][2]
6. A vertical post or plank in a building, as in a stave church.^[17][8][2]
7. The alliterating sound or letter in a line of verse.^[8][12]

Verb

1. To break or crush inward, or to smash a hole in, often with in: A reef staved in the dinghy's bow.^{[7][2][16][9]}
2. To break up a cask; to lose or destroy its wine or liquor in this way.^[7][9][8]
3. stave off: to keep off or ward off something unwelcome; originally, to beat off with a staff: They staved off bankruptcy for another year.^[8][9]
4. To fit with staves, or to form into staves.^[7][9][8]

Word family

• stave off

Related words

• staff

Usage notes

The verb has the past tense and past participle staved or stove;^[7][16][8] Etymonline ties stove to the nautical sense.^[3] Jespersen, quoted by Etymonline, points out that the old plural of staff produced this new singular, while the regular plural staffs grew up for bodies of people.^[3] The OED has a further noun stave, perhaps "the stem of a ship", from one quotation of before 1400, possibly a variant of stam (now obsolete).^[9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press