stale
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: stāl
ipa: /steɪl/
rhymes: -eɪl
Forms: form: stales
form: stele
form: steal
form: stele
form: steel
form: stail
Etymology: From Middle English stale, from Old English stalu, from Proto-Germanic *stal-; compare English stell from this root. The development was paralleled by the ablaut which became English steal, from Middle English stele, from Old English stela, from Proto-Germanic *stel-. Both are from the same Proto-Indo-European root *stel-, *stol- (“to place, establish”), whence also Ancient Greek στελεός (steleós, “handle”). See also English stele.
Senses: examples: text: In Case your Cask is a Butt,...have ready boiling...Water, which put in, and, with a long Stale and a little Birch fastened to its End, scrub the Bottom.
ref: 1742, W. Ellis, London & Country Brewer, 4th edition, I 61:
text: You came to me with the axe head in one hand and the stale in the other.
ref: 1890 February 4, Manchester Guardian, 12 3:
glosses: A long, thin handle (of rakes, axes, etc.)
examples: text: Stales, the staves, or risings of a ladder, or the staves of a rack in a stable.
ref: 1887, W. D. Parish et al., Kentish Dial.:
text: Fruit ladders should be provided beforehand. They differ from the ordinary ladder by having the bottom rungs a little longer and the top of the side stales meeting together so is to rest in the fork of a limb.
ref: 1891, T. E. Smith, The Nova Scotia Fruit Grower, page 72:
text: The zigzag determines the order of the currents from [1] which occur on the stales of the ladder and their relation with the currents from [0] which occur on the rungs and ringles between them.
ref: 1971, Research Paper - Issues 141-155, page 7:
glosses: One of the posts or uprights of a ladder.
examples: text: To begin then: not long before this paragraph was written, P fell into doze, and dreamt, he saw Jacob's ladder with one foot standing on the earth, the other reaching up into heaven. Dukes, Marquisses, and other Peers, fancy represented to him, as standing on the upper stales; on the middle ones, Knights and Baronets, and under them, a train of Esquires and Gentlemen, reaching to the bottom.
ref: 1792, Thomas Paine, A Rod in Brine, or a tickler for T. Paine, page 16:
text: Mr. Marsden managed, by dint of swimming, to come in contact with the form, to which hemself and friend had previously fixed the cord and thrown overboard; but this, from its shape, would have proved, in all probability, but a doubtful means of escape, had he not, after a time, fallen in with a small ladder, which he affixed with the cord to the form, placing his leg between the stales, and resting his body, sometimes at full length, when the breakers had fallen on the form.
ref: 1834, Joseph Adshead, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Wreck of the Rothsay, page 236:
text: The rental of the lands remained at these figures for many years, and the following extracts are examples of the payments made:— A.D. 1686, Utt, pᵈ Thomas Rassel for a load of lime delivered to Smalhith Chappell 01₤ 11s. 0d. Itt . for a quire of paper 00₤ 00s. 06d. Itt . for a ladder for the use of the Chappel 33 stales long , at 2ᵈ yᵉ stale 00₤ 05s. 6d.
ref: 1914, Archaeologia Cantiana - Volume 30, page 173:
text: Ash was used for stales (ladder rungs).
ref: 1998, Barney Edward Daley, Tobacco Parish: A Collection of South Windsor's Memories:
text: As a young man Mike Austen, a retired farmer now working as a guide at Brogdale, used to climb up a ladder with sixty 'stales', or rungs – eight inches between each of them – to pick the cherries in his father's orchard with a basket tied to either his waist or the ladder.
ref: 2014, Matthew Engel, Engel's England: Thirty-nine counties, one capital and one man:
glosses: One of the rungs on a ladder.
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: The stem of a plant.
examples: text: The Surgians cut of the stale of that shaft in suche wise, that they moued not the heade that was wythin the fleshe.
ref: 1553, Q. Curtius Rufus, translated by J. Brende, Hist., section IX:
text: But (ſeeing th'arrowes ſtale without,) and […]
ref: [1611?], Homer, “The Fourth Booke of Homers Iliads”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC, page 53:
glosses: The shaft of an arrow, spear, etc.
Synonyms: english: grip of tools, generally
translation: grip of tools, generally
word: handle
english: grip of tools, generally, and especially of axes
translation: grip of tools, generally, and especially of axes
word: haft
english: grip of tools, generally
translation: grip of tools, generally
word: helve
english: body of arrows, spears
translation: body of arrows, spears
word: shaft
word: snath
word: the shaft of a scythe
english: plants
translation: plants
word: stem
Related terms: stalk