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PlainSpell

stave

/steɪv/noun, verb

stave is spelled S-T-A-V-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 27,462nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, stave means “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…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of stave is staves.

How many letters and syllables are in stave?

Letters5: S-T-A-V-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1.1 times per million words; the 27,462nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is stave?

Stave appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 27,462nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce stave?

  • /steɪv/

Stave has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-stave.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-I_learned_some_phrases-stave.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with stave?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as stave.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: vesta, vates.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of stave

  • staves plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • staving participle, present
  • staved past, participle

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does stave mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 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; especially, one of the strips which form the sides of a cask, barrel, pail, etc.

  2. 2

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

  3. 3

    A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.

  4. 4

    The set of five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or pointed; the staff.

  5. 5

    rareThe initial consonant, consonant cluster, or vowel of a word which rhymes with another word with the same consonant or vowel in stave-rhyme.

  6. 6

    A sign, symbol or sigil, including rune or rune-like characters, used in Icelandic magic.

  7. 7

    A staff or walking stick.

verb

  1. 1

    To fit or furnish with staves or rundles.

  2. 2

    To break in the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst.

    to stave in a cask

  3. 3

    To push, or keep off, as with a staff.

  4. 4

    To delay by force or craft; to drive away.

    We ate grass in an attempt to stave off our hunger.

  5. 5

    archaicrareTo burst in pieces by striking against something.

  6. 6

    datedTo walk or move rapidly.

  7. 7

    To suffer, or cause to be lost by breaking the cask.

  8. 8

    To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron.

    to stave lead, or the joints of pipes into which lead has been run

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Stave in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchdouve (narrow strip, a part of a vessel), fuseau (bar), strophe (metrical portion; stanza; staff), portée (parallel lines to write music on), bâton (walking stick)
GermanDaube (narrow strip, a part of a vessel), Sprosse (bar), Strophe, Vers (metrical portion; stanza; staff), Notenlinien, Notensystem (parallel lines to write music on)
Portugueseaduela (narrow strip, a part of a vessel)
Spanishduela, doga (narrow strip, a part of a vessel), estrofa (metrical portion; stanza; staff), pentagrama (parallel lines to write music on)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does stave come from?

Back-formation from staves, the plural of staff.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after stave