staves

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of staff.

   Two carved staves stood propped against the chapel wall.

   The monks struck the ground with their staves to mark the rhythm of the chant.

   Note

   An old irregular plural, made by voicing the f to v as in leaves and wolves. It belongs to the walking stick, the rod borne as a badge of office and the lines of written music. The employees of a business usually take the regular plural staffs. Because a musical staff is also called a stave, the spelling here meets the plural of stave exactly.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of stave.

   The old cask fell apart once its iron hoops rusted and the staves came loose.

   Workers steamed the oak staves until they bent into the right shape.

   Note

   Here the singular is stave, and the plural is perfectly regular: one stave, two staves. The cooper's meaning leads: the curved strips set edge to edge and hooped into a cask or pail. The same plural also covers the rungs of a ladder, the stanzas of a poem and the rune-like signs of Icelandic magic.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of stave.

   A strong cup of coffee staves off her afternoon tiredness.

   The new sea wall staves off the worst of the storm surge each year.

   Note

   The present-tense verb form is met most often before off: a coffee staves off tiredness, and a sea wall staves off the surge. That phrase means delaying or driving back something unwelcome rather than ending it for good. The rarer senses use the same form: fitting a cask with staves, or breaking a hole in one. A dated dialect use simply means to walk fast.

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