Definition of stave

• n. - 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; esp., one of the strips which form the sides of a cask, a pail, etc.
• n. - One of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel; one of the bars or rounds of a rack, a ladder, etc.
• n. - A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.
• n. - The five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or pointed; the staff.
• n. - To break in a stave or the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst; -- often with in; as, to stave a cask; to stave in a boat.
• n. - To push, as with a staff; -- with off.
• n. - To delay by force or craft; to drive away; -- usually with off; as, to stave off the execution of a project.
• n. - To suffer, or cause, to be lost by breaking the cask.
• n. - To furnish with staves or rundles.
• n. - To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron; as, to stave lead, or the joints of pipes into which lead has been run.
• v. i. - To burst in pieces by striking against something; to dash into fragments.