stake
A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
Noun 4 meanings
A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
“We have surveyor's stakes at all four corners of this field, to mark exactly its borders.”
A piece of wood driven in the ground, placed in the middle of the court, that is used as the finishing point after scoring 12 hoops in croquet.
A stick or similar object (e.g., steel channel or angle stock) inserted upright in a lop, eye, or mortise, at the side or end of a cart, flat car, flatbed trailer, or the like, to prevent goods from falling off; often connected in a grid forming a stakebody.
The piece of timber to which a person condemned to death was affixed to be burned.
“Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake.”
Verb 4 meanings
To fasten, support, defend, or delineate with stakes.
“to stake vines or plants”
To pierce or wound with a stake.
To put at risk upon success in competition, or upon a future contingency.
To provide (another) with money in order to engage in an activity as betting or a business venture.
“John went broke, so to keep him playing, Jill had to stake him.”
Etymology
From Middle English stake, from Old English staca (“pin, tack, stake”), from Proto-West Germanic *stakō, from Proto-Germanic *stakô (“stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *stog-, *steg- (“stake”).
Similar and opposite words
STAKE at a glance
STAKE has 5 letters and scores 9 points in Scrabble (S 1 + T 1 + A 1 + K 5 + E 1) and 9 in Words With Friends, before board bonuses. It ranks #5,535 by how often it appears in everyday English. It is valid in ENABLE, NWL2023, Collins/SOWPODS.
Rhymes with stake
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