stake

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   mark with a stake

   stake out the path

2. 2
   verb

   tie or fasten to a stake

   stake your goat

3. 3
   verb

   put at risk

   I will stake my good reputation for this

4. 4
   noun

   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.

   We have surveyor's stakes at all four corners of this field, to mark exactly its borders.

5. 5
   noun

   The piece of timber to which a person condemned to death was affixed to be burned.

   Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake.

6. 6
   noun

   A share or interest in a business or a given situation.

   The owners let the managers eventually earn a stake in the business.

7. 7
   noun

   A territorial division comprising all the Mormons (typically several thousand) in a geographical area.

   Every city, or stake, including a chief town and surrounding towns, has its president, with two counselors; and this president has a high council of chosen men.

8. 8
   verb

   To fasten, support, defend, or delineate with stakes.

   to stake vines or plants

Etymology

From Middle English stake, from Old English staca (“pin, tack, stake”), from Proto-West Germanic *stakō, from Proto-Germanic *stakô (“stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *stog-, *steg- (“stake”). Cognate with Scots stak, staik, Saterland Frisian Stak, West Frisian staak, Dutch staak, Low German Stake, Norwegian stake, Spanish estaca.