stale

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“
Tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane manages to look backward without seeming stale, and manages to deflect his sound off of his father's without either outright rejection or pale imitation.

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Definitions (40)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. adjective Having lost freshness, effervescence, or palatability: stale bread; stale air.
  2. adjective Lacking originality or spontaneity: a stale joke.
  3. adjective Impaired in efficacy, vigor, or spirit, as from inactivity or boredom.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (24)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (6)

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Examples (50)

  • The air at home can become dusty and stale, air purifiers can create a fresher, cleaner air inside. —  MyLinkVault Newest Links
  • If a regular reader of your blog visits it and finds that the news is stale, they will move on to other blogs and may never return. —  SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
  • This is getting so stale, the idea that -- see Trent Reznor gave it away, but people will stillbe complaining about torrents -- as though they are complaining about totally voluntary giveaways. —  Techdirt
  • Once a document has been determined to be stale, the links contained in that document may be discounted or ignored by search engine 125 when determining scores for documents pointed to by the links. —  Search Engine Roundtable
  • Either you go off on some stupid tangent or you fall back to some dogmatic, stale, already debunked, arguments. —  SpikedHumor - Today's Videos and Pictures
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

musty ·  sour ·  salty ·  pungent ·  rancid ·  sticky ·  spin-dry ·  moist ·  rotten ·  unpleasant ·  foul ·  insipid
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (8)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, settled, clear (used of beer or wine), probably from Old French estale, slack, settled, clear, from estaler, to come to a standstill, halt, from estal, standing place, stand, of Germanic origin; see stel- in Indo-European roots.
  2. Middle English stalen, possibly of Low German origin; akin to Middle Low German stallen.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (6)

  1. Scots also staill, steill, stall; from Middle English stale, theft, a trap, from Anglo-Saxon statu, theft (in comp. stæl-, as in stæl-hrān, a decoy reindeer, stælgæst, a thievish guest, stælhere, a predatory army) (= D. *stal, in dief-stal, theft, = G. *stahl, in dieb-stahl, theft), from stelan (preterit stæl), steal: see steal. Cf. stalk.
  2. Also stail; also, with a pron. now different, steal, rarely steel, early modern English stele; from Middle English stale, stele, from Anglo-Saxon stæl, stel, stalk, stem, = MD, stele, steel, stael, Dutch steel, stalk, stem, handle, = Middle Low German stel, stēl, a stalk, handle, Low German stale, a round of a ladder, = Old High German Middle High German stil, German stiel, a handle, broomstick, stalk; cf. Latin stilus, a stake, pale, pointed instrument, stalk, stem, etc. (see style); Greek στελεόν, στειλειόν, a handle or helve of an ax, σταλίς, στήλη, an upright or standing slab (see stele); akin to στέλλειν, set, place, and ult. to stall and still, from the root of stand: see stand. Hence stalk.
  3. from Middle English stale, stale (applied to ale and beer); from Old French estale (Kilian), from Middle Dutch stel, old, ancient, applied to old and purified beer and to old urine (stel bier, stele pisse, Kilian; later written as compound, stelbier, stel-pisse, Hexham); origin uncertain; perhaps literally ‘still,’ same as Middle Dutch stel, variant of stil, still (cf. still wine, etc.): see still. According to Skeat, who associates the adjective with stale, urine, “stale is that which reminds one of the stable, tainted, etc.”; he also suggests that stale in one sense may be ‘too long exposed to sale,’ from Old French estaler, display wares on stalls, from estal, a stall: see stall. This explanation, however, fails to satisfy the conditions.
  4. Middle English stalen; from stale, a.
  5. apparently from D. G. stallen = Swedish stalla = Danish stalle, urinate (said of horses and cattle); apparently a neuter use, literally ‘stand in stall,’ parallel with the transitive use, D. G. stallen = Swedish stalla = Danish stalle, put into a stall; from the noun, Dutch stal = German stall = Swedish stall = Danish stald, stall: see stall, n. The form is apparently irreg. (for *stall), and is perhaps due to confusion with stale, a., as applied to urine.
  6. See stale, v.
 

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/steɪl/
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