stave

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A narrow strip of wood forming part of the sides of a barrel, tub, or similar structure.
2. n. A rung of a ladder or chair.
3. n. A staff or cudgel.
4. n. Music See staff¹.
5. n. A set of verses; a stanza.
6. v. To break in or puncture the staves of.
7. v. To break or smash a hole in.
8. v. To crush or smash inward.
9. v. To furnish with staves.
10. v. To be or become crushed in.
11. stave off To keep or hold off; repel: "For 12 years, we've sought to stave off this ultimate threat of disaster” ( New York Times).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A pole or piece of wood of some length; a Staff. Specifically— In cooperage, one of the thin, narrow pieces of wood, grooved for the bottom, the head, etc., which compose a barrel, cask, tub, or the like.
2. n. A stanza; a verse; a metrical division.
3. n. Specifically, same as staff, 9.
4. To break in a stave or staves of; knock a hole in; break; burst: as, the boat is stove.
5. To cause or suffer to be lost by breaking the cask; hence, to spill; pour out.
6. To furnish with staves or rundles.
7. To make firm by compression; shorten or compact, as a heated rod or bar by endwise blows, or as lead in the socket-joints of pipes.
8. To go or rush along recklessly or regardless of everything, as one in a rage; work energetically; drive.
9. n. The porter-bar used to start and hold massive forgings which are undergoing treatment in a furnace or under a hammer or press. The part to be made is welded to the stave or porter-bar, and when completed the latter is cut off.

Wiktionary

1. 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.
2. n. One of the bars or rounds of a rack, rungs of a ladder, etc; one of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel
3. n. poetry A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.
4. n. The five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or pointed; the staff.
5. n. A staff or walking stick
6. v. transitive To break in the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst. Often with in.
7. v. transitive To push, as with a staff. With off.
8. v. transitive To delay by force; to drive away. Often with off.
9. v. intransitive To burst in pieces by striking against something.
10. v. intransitive To walk or move rapidly.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. 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.
2. n. One of the cylindrical bars of a lantern wheel; one of the bars or rounds of a rack, a ladder, etc.
3. n. A metrical portion; a stanza; a staff.
4. n. (Mus.), obsolete The five horizontal and parallel lines on and between which musical notes are written or printed; the staff{7}.
5. v. To break in a stave or the staves of; to break a hole in; to burst; -- often with in
6. v. To push, as with a staff; -- with off.
7. v. To delay by force or craft; to drive away; -- usually with off.
8. v. To suffer, or cause, to be lost by breaking the cask.
9. v. To furnish with staves or rundles.
10. v. To render impervious or solid by driving with a calking iron.
11. v. To burst in pieces by striking against something; to dash into fragments.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. burst or force (a hole) into something
2. n. a crosspiece between the legs of a chair
3. n. one of several thin slats of wood forming the sides of a barrel or bucket
4. v. furnish with staves
5. n. (music) the system of five horizontal lines on which the musical notes are written