stake
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
staykIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsteɪk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A share or interest in a business or a given situation.
That which is laid down as a wager; that which is staked or hazarded; a pledge.
A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
with definite article
The piece of timber to which a person condemned to death was affixed to be burned.
A strong wooden or metal post with a point at one end so it can be driven into the ground
A stick or similar object (e.g., steel channel or angle stock) inserted upright in a lop, eye, or mortise, at the side or end of a cart, flat car, flatbed trailer, or the like, to prevent goods from falling off; often connected in a grid forming a stakebody.
verb
transitive
To put at risk upon success in competition, or upon a future contingency.
“I will stake my good reputation for this.”
transitive
To provide (another) with money in order to engage in an activity as betting or a business venture.
transitive
To fasten, support, defend, or delineate with stakes.
transitive
To pierce or wound with a stake.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.
Used this way, stake is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- bet , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use stake
- “I will stake my good reputation for this.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The money risked on a gamble.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A kind of bittern.
A horse race in which part of the prize is put up by the owners of the horses in the race.
Execution by fire.
An annual race for three-year-old horses.
In question or at issue.
Remove oneself from an association with or participation in.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Someone entrusted to hold the stakes for two or more persons betting against one another.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.