stave
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: stāv
ipa: /steɪv/
rhymes: -eɪv
Forms: form: staves
form: staving
form: staved
form: stove
form: staved
form: stove
form: stoven
Etymology: Back-formation from staves, the plural of staff.
Senses: examples: text: vpon paine of death to bring it out and to ſtaue it
ref: 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:
glosses: To fit or furnish with staves or rundles.
examples: text: to stave in a cask
text: A great Sea constant runs here upon the Rocks, and before they got to Land their Boat was stav’d in Pieces […]
ref: 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, page 12:
text: And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 7, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
text: Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent within the year.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 22”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
text: A little to one side a cask was being staved for the troopers who had come with the Duke; and on all the noisy, moving scene and the flags that streamed from the roofs and windows, and the shifting crowd, poured the ruddy light of a great bon-feu that burned on the farther side of the way.
ref: 1897, Stanley John Weyman, chapter IV, in Shrewsbury:
text: […]for the jagged butt of the fallen mast was dashing against the ship's side with such vicious blows that it seemed but a matter of seconds ere it would stave a hole in her.
ref: 1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published 31 October 1921, →OCLC:
glosses: To break in the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst.
raw_tags: with 'in'
examples: text: The condition of a servant staves him off to a distance.
ref: 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:
glosses: To push, or keep off, as with a staff.
raw_tags: with 'off'
examples: text: We ate grass in an attempt to stave off our hunger.
text: Congress had authorized seeds to be granted to the farmers there to stave hunger, but President Cleveland vetoed the bill.
ref: 2009, Brent Stransky, The Young Conservative's Field Guide, page 39:
glosses: To delay by force or craft; to drive away.
raw_tags: with 'off'
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1746, Robert Forbes, The Lyon in Mourning, volume 1, page 164:
glosses: To burst in pieces by striking against something.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1845, The Century Magazine, volume 48, page 41:
glosses: To walk or move rapidly.
examples: text: All the […]wine in the city hath been staved.
ref: 1615, George Sandys, “(please specify the page)”, in The Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610. […], London: […] [Richard Field] for W. Barrett, →OCLC:
glosses: To suffer, or cause to be lost by breaking the cask.
examples: to stave lead, or the joints of pipes into which lead has been run
glosses: To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron.
Derived terms: stave in
stave off