stave | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

9 entries found.

"piece of a barrel," 1750, back-formation from staves (late 14c.), plural of staff, with the usual change of medial -f- to -v- (compare leaves/leaf). The plural form possibly was in Old English but not recorded there.

stave (v.)

1540s, "to fit with staves," from stave (n.). The meaning "break into staves" is from 1590s (with in from 1748, chiefly nautical, on notion of bashing in the staves of a cask). Past tense stove. Stave off (1620s), however, is literally "keep off with a staff," as of one beset by wolves or dogs. Related: Staved; staving.

rung (n.)

late Old English hrung "rod, cross-bar; stout, rounded stick," from Proto-Germanic *khrungo (source also of Middle Low German runge, Old High German runga "stake, stud, stave," German Runge "stake, stud, stave," Middle Dutch ronghe, Dutch rong "rung," Gothic hrugga "staff"), a word of unknown origin with no connections outside Germanic if as is supposed the Celtic words are from English.

The sense in English narrowed to mean usually "round or stave of a ladder" (attested from late 13c.), but usage of cognate words remains more general in other Germanic languages.

This [rungs] has generally been considered as a mere corruption of rounds; and people of education use only this latter word. [John Pickering, "A Vocabulary or Collection of Words and Phrases which have been Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of America," Boston, 1816]

bass (adj.)

late 14c., of things, "low, not high," from Late Latin bassus "short, low" (see base (adj.)). Meaning "low in social scale or rank" is recorded from late 14c. Of voices and music notes, "low in tone" from mid-15c. (technically, ranging from the E flat below the bass stave to the F above it), infuenced by Italian basso.

dudgeon (n.)

"feeling of offense, resentment, sullen anger," 1570s, duggin, of unknown origin. One suggestion is Italian aduggiare "to overshadow," giving it the same sense development as umbrage. No clear connection to earlier dudgeon (late 14c.), a kind of wood used for knife handles, which is perhaps from French douve "a stave," which probably is Germanic. The source also has been sought in Celtic, especially Welsh dygen "malice, resentment," but OED reports that this "appears to be historically and phonetically baseless."

fusty (adj.)

"stale-smelling," late 14c., from French fusté "fusty, tasting of the cask," from Old French fuste, fuist "wine cask," originally "stick, stave, wood" (Modern French fût), from Latin fustis "staff, stick of wood" (see fustigate). Related: Fustiness. Fustilugs was 17c. slang for "a woman of gross or corpulent habit" [OED], later generally in dialect for a big-boned person.

xylo-

before vowels xyl-, word forming element meaning "wood," from Greek xylon "wood cut and ready for use, firewood, timber; piece of wood; stocks, a plank, beam, or bench," in New Testament, "the Cross," a word of uncertain origin. It seems to correspond with Lithuanian šulas "post, pole, stave," Russian šulo "garden-pole," Serbo-Croatian šulj "block," Old High German sul "style, pole," Gothic sauls "pillar," but the exact relationship is unclear, and Beekes asks, "Was the word taken from a non-IE substrate language?"

typewriter (n.)

in the mechanical sense, 1868, from type (n.) + writer. Related: Type-write (v.) "print by means of a typewriter;" type-written (1882). Slang office-piano "typewriter" is by 1942.

It is the advantage of the typewriter that, due to its rigidity and its space precisions, it can, for a poet, indicate exactly the breath, the pauses, the suspensions even of syllables, the juxtapositions even of parts of phrases, which he intends. For the first time the poet has the stave and the bar a musician has had. For the first time he can, without the convention of rime and meter, record the listening he has done to his own speech and by that one act indicate how he would want any reader, silently or otherwise, to voice his work. [Charles Olson, "Projective Verse," 1950]

stavesacre (n.)

herbal plant of the Delphinium family, c. 1400, from Latin staphisagria, from Greek staphis agria, literally "wild raisin," from staphis "raisin" (according to Klein, probably related to staphyle "bunch of grapes") + agria, fem. of agrios "wild," literally "living in the fields," from agros "field" (from PIE root *agro- "field").

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