stake
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /steɪk/
homophone: steak
rhymes: -eɪk
Forms: form: stakes
Etymology: From Middle English stake, from Old English staca (“pin, tack, stake”), from Proto-West Germanic *stakō, from Proto-Germanic *stakô (“stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *stog-, *steg- (“stake”).
Cognate with Scots stak, staik, Saterland Frisian Stak, West Frisian staak, Dutch staak, Low German Stake, Norwegian stake, Spanish estaca.
Senses: examples: text: We have surveyor's stakes at all four corners of this field, to mark exactly its borders.
text: A sharpened stake strong Dryas found.
ref: 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
glosses: A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
qualifier: croquet
glosses: A piece of wood driven in the ground, placed in the middle of the court, that is used as the finishing point after scoring 12 hoops in croquet.
glosses: A stick or similar object (e.g., steel channel or angle stock) inserted upright in a lop, eye, or mortise, at the side or end of a cart, flat car, flatbed trailer, or the like, to prevent goods from falling off; often connected in a grid forming a stakebody.
examples: text: Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake.
text: However, the word "witch" came to be applied almost exclusively to women who [...] were usually old and ugly, and for this reason many unfortunate old ladies, whose only crimes were loneliness and a lack of beauty, went to the stake.
ref: 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 106:
glosses: The piece of timber to which a person condemned to death was affixed to be burned.
examples: text: The owners let the managers eventually earn a stake in the business.
text: The French Government is Eurostar's majority shareholder, with the country's state-owned railway SNCF holding a 55% stake, while Belgian state operator SNCB has a 5% stake.
ref: 2021 February 10, Richard Clinnick, “Eurostar boost as French promise aid”, in RAIL, number 924, page 10:
coordinate_terms: seat at the table
glosses: A share or interest in a business or a given situation.
glosses: That which is laid down as a wager; that which is staked or hazarded; a pledge.
glosses: A small anvil usually furnished with a tang to enter a hole in a bench top, as used by tinsmiths, blacksmiths, etc., for light work, punching hole in or cutting a work piece, or for specific forming techniques etc.
examples: text: Every city, or stake, including a chief town and surrounding towns, has its president, with two counselors; and this president has a high council of chosen men.
ref: 1910, Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge:
glosses: A territorial division comprising all the Mormons (typically several thousand) in a geographical area.
Synonyms: sense: croquet
word: peg
Derived terms: word: alestake
sense: wager or pledge
word: at stake
word: burn someone at the stake
word: corkscrew stake
word: drive a stake through its heart
word: grub-stake
word: macaroni stake
word: maiden stake
word: pull up stakes
word: ridstake
word: stake boat
word: stakebody
word: stake-driver
word: Stakeford
word: stakeholder
word: stake of Zion
word: table stakes
word: torture stake