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stakes

noun

Form of stake , plural of stake.

Simple meaning

The money wagered in gambling.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

stayks
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsteɪks

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The money wagered in gambling

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: The money wagered in gambling

Used this way, stakes 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

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use stakes

  • “The stakes are high in this competition, with a big prize for the winner.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

high stakesstakes testingpolitical stakestwo stakessmall stakesequity stakes

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • stakeverbBase word

    Put at risk.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • belmont stakesnounCompound term

    An annual race for three-year-old horses.

  • pull up stakesverbCompound term

    Remove oneself from an association with or participation in.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • stakeholdernounRelated term

    Someone entrusted to hold the stakes for two or more persons betting against one another.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: money wagered in gambling

bet

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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.