stave

Plural: staves

Noun

• (music) the system of five horizontal lines on which the musical notes are written
• one of several thin slats of wood forming the sides of a barrel or bucket
• a crosspiece between the legs of a chair
• 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; especially, one of the strips which form the sides of a cask, barrel, pail, etc.
• One of the bars or rounds of a rack, rungs of a ladder, etc; one of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel
• A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.
• The set of five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or pointed; the staff.
• The initial consonant, consonant cluster, or vowel of a word which rhymes with another word with the same consonant or vowel in stave-rhyme.
• A sign, symbol or sigil, including rune or rune-like characters, used in Icelandic magic.
• A staff or walking stick.

Verb

Verb Forms: staved, stove, staving, staves

• To drive or thrust away; to ward off.
• furnish with staves
  • "stave a ladder"
• burst or force (a hole) into something
• To fit or furnish with staves or rundles.
• To break in the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst.
• To push, or keep off, as with a staff.
• To delay by force or craft; to drive away.
• To burst in pieces by striking against something.
• To walk or move rapidly.
• To suffer, or cause to be lost by breaking the cask.
• To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron.

Examples

• He managed to stave off defeat with a perfectly timed seven-letter word.
• We ate grass in an attempt to stave off our hunger.

Synonyms

lag, round, rung, staff, stave in

Anagrams of stave