STAVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Stave

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verb

Stave v. t. (past & past part. stove or staved; pres. part. staving)

1.

To break in a stave or the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst; often with in; as, to stave a cask; to stave in a boat.

2.

To push, as with a staff; with off. "The condition of a servant staves him off to a distance."

3.

To delay by force or craft; to drive away; usually with off; as, to stave off the execution of a project. "And answered with such craft as women use, Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance That breaks upon them perilously."

4.

To suffer, or cause, to be lost by breaking the cask. "All the wine in the city has been staved."

5.

To furnish with staves or rundles.

6.

To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron; as, to stave lead, or the joints of pipes into which lead has been run.

To stave and tail, in bear baiting, (to stave) to interpose with the staff, doubtless to stop the bear; (to tail) to hold back the dog by the tail.

Stave v. i. (past & past part. stove or staved; pres. part. staving) To burst in pieces by striking against something; to dash into fragments. "Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank."

noun

Stave n.

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; esp., one of the strips which form the sides of a cask, a pail, etc.

2.

One of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel; one of the bars or rounds of a rack, a ladder, etc.

3.

A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff. "Let us chant a passing stave In honor of that hero brave."

4.

(Mus.) The five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or printed; the staff (7). (Obs.)

Stave jointer, a machine for dressing the edges of staves.

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Etymology of 'Stave'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stave" Quotes from Famous Books

... literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a line; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking on uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men—always an example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a ...

— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... sometimes very big. They were the Dreadnought battleships of their own time and place and people. When their ends were sharpened into a sort of ram they could stave in an enemy's canoe if they caught its side full tilt with their own end. Dug-out canoes were common wherever the trees were big and strong enough, as in Southern Asia, Central Africa, and on the Pacific Coast ...

— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... do anything they wished on account of the weather, as it was not so cold to the natives as to us. They played with balls, both large and small, and sleds of all descriptions; and if the latter were not to be had, or all in use, a barrel stave or board would be made to answer the same purpose. It was a rush past the window down the hill, first by a pair of muckluked feet, then a barrel stave and a boy, sometimes little Pete, and sometimes John. One barrel stave would hold only one coaster, and there were usually enough for the ...

— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... sir? Some promising opportunity might come up, and I don't see what could stop us from taking advantage of it. If there are only about twenty men on board this machine, I don't think they can stave off two ...

— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... dawn. The horrible meanness of its details was veiled, the hutches that were homes, the bristling multitudes of chimneys, the ugly patches of unwilling vegetation amidst the makeshift fences of barrel-stave and wire. The rusty scars that framed the opposite ridges where the iron ore was taken and the barren mountains of slag from the blast furnaces were veiled; the reek and boiling smoke and dust ...

— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

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