1. stave - Noun
2. stave - Verb
3. Stave - Proper noun
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.
One of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel; one of the bars or rounds of a rack, a ladder, etc.
A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.
The five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or pointed; the staff.
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.
To push, as with a staff; -- with off.
To delay by force or craft; to drive away; -- usually with off; as, to stave off the execution of a project.
To suffer, or cause, to be lost by breaking the cask.
To furnish with staves or rundles.
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 burst in pieces by striking against something; to dash into fragments.
Source: Webster's dictionaryThere can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine. Peter Singer
If I was ever a rare fine summer person, that's long ago. Most of us are half-and-half. The August noon in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we've stashed away. But there are times when we're all autumn people. Ray Bradbury
I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields; - Reflection, you may come to-morrow, Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. - You with the unpaid bill, Despair, - You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, - I will pay you in the grave, - Death will listen to your stave. Percy Bysshe Shelley
No amount of money would stave off a nuclear warhead. Poul Anderson
I am foremost of all the Trojan warriors to stave the day of bondage from off them; as for you, vultures shall devour you here. Homer
The best we can do with this flawed approach [the Iraq War surge] is to stave off defeat. Ricardo Sanchez