staking

SaySTAYK-ing/ˈsteɪkɪŋ/

Noun pluralstakings

2 meanings of staking

Practice

1
verb
Present participle and gerund of stake.
Staking tomato plants early gives them better support as they grow.
He was staking everything on a single risky investment.
Note
The -ing form drops the silent e of stake, and it carries every meaning of the verb at once. Those include driving in supports (staking tomato plants), wagering (staking everything on one bet), backing someone with money, and locking up cryptocurrency for proof of stake. As a gerund it takes a direct object. The noun for a stabbing instead takes of and a plural, stakings.
2
nouncountable or uncountable
The act of stabbing or piercing something with a stake.
The legend describes the staking of the corpse to prevent its return.
A single staking through the heart was said to destroy the creature for good.
Similarimpalement
Note
A noun with a long pedigree: it goes back through Middle English stakyng to Old English stacung, built on a verb meaning "to drive stakes." It is at home in vampire lore and takes a plural. Jonathan Maberry and David F. Kramer's They Bite (2009) sets the "bloody stakings" of films against folklore, where the stake was a tool of exorcism rather than the killing blow.

staking is a form of stake

stake, verb: To risk money or something valuable on the success of a competition or a future outcome. Full entry

Forms: stakestakes he/she/itstaking -ing formstaked past tense, past participle
Spelling: stake → staking: drop the e, add -ing

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Origins

Meaning 1

Formed from stake plus the suffix -ing.

Meaning 2

From Middle English stakyng or staking, from Old English stacung ('staking'), which came from Old English *stacian ('to drive stakes'); it is equivalent to stake plus -ing.