staff

¹ American  

[staf, stahf] / stæf, stɑf /

noun

• staffs,
  plural,  plural
• staves
  plural

1. a group of persons, as employees, charged with carrying out the work of an establishment or executing some undertaking.

2. a group of assistants to a manager, superintendent, or executive.

3. a member of a staff.

4. Military.

   1. a body of officers without command authority, appointed to assist a commanding officer.

   2. the parts of any army concerned with administrative matters, planning, etc., rather than with actual participation in combat.

5. those members of an organization serving only in an auxiliary or advisory capacity on a given project.

6. a stick, pole, or rod for aid in walking or climbing, for use as a weapon, etc.

7. a rod or wand serving as a symbol of office or authority, as a crozier, baton, truncheon, or mace.

8. a pole on which a flag is hung or displayed.

9. something that supports or sustains.

10. Music. Also a set of horizontal lines, now five in number, with the corresponding four spaces between them, on which music is written.

11. Archaic. the shaft of a spear, lance, etc.

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adjective

1. of or relating to a military or organizational staff.

   a staff officer; staff meetings.

2. (of a professional person) employed on the staff of a corporation, publication, institution, or the like rather than being self-employed or practicing privately.

   a staff writer; staff physicians at the hospital.

verb (used with object)

• staffs,
  present (3rd person singular)
• staffed,
  past participle,  past
• staffing
  present participle

1. to provide with a staff of assistants or workers.

   She staffed her office with excellent secretaries.

2. to serve on the staff of.

3. to send to a staff for study or further work (often followed byout ).

   The White House will staff out the recommendations before making a decision.

verb (used without object)

• staffs,
  present (3rd person singular)
• staffed,
  past participle,  past
• staffing
  present participle

1. to hire employees, as for a new office or project (sometimes followed byup ).

   Next month we'll begin staffing up for the reelection campaign.

staff ² American  

[staf, stahf] / stæf, stɑf /

noun

1. a composition of plaster and fibrous material used for a temporary finish and in ornamental work, as on exposition buildings.

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staff ¹ British  

/ stɑːf /

noun

1. a group of people employed by a company, individual, etc, for executive, clerical, sales work, etc

2. (modifier) attached to or provided for the staff of an establishment

   a staff doctor

3. the body of teachers or lecturers of an educational institution, as distinct from the students

4. the officers appointed to assist a commander, service, or central headquarters organization in establishing policy, plans, etc

5. a stick with some special use, such as a walking stick or an emblem of authority

6. something that sustains or supports

   bread is the staff of life

7. a pole on which a flag is hung

8. Usual US name: rod.  a graduated rod used in surveying, esp for sighting to with a levelling instrument

9. Also called: stave.  music

   1. the system of horizontal lines grouped into sets of five (four in the case of plainsong) upon which music is written. The spaces between them are also used, being employed in conjunction with a clef in order to give a graphic indication of pitch

   2. any set of five lines in this system together with its clef

      the treble staff

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verb

1. (tr) to provide with a staff

staff ² British  

/ stɑːf /

noun

1. a mixture of plaster and hair used to cover the external surface of temporary structures and for decoration

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Grammar

See collective noun.

Usage

Plural word for staff The plural form of staff is staffs. For some meanings of the word staff, staves, pronounced [ steyvz ] is also an acceptable plural form. However, it is easier to use the plural form staffs, which is valid for all meanings of the word staff. The plural of several other words that end in -f are also formed this way, including playoff/playoffs, cliff/cliffs, and roof/roofs. In some instances, words that end in -f are made plural by changing the ending to -ves, as in half/halves or leaf/leaves, which derives directly from their original pluralization in Old English. This is the plural form we see in staff/staves.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• staffless
  adjective
• unstaffed
  adjective
• well-staffed
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• staffs
  plural
• staves
  plural

Participles

• staffing
  present
• staffed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• staff
  simple
• staffs
  simple
• have staffed
  perfect
• has staffed
  perfect
• am staffing
  progressive
• are staffing
  progressive
• is staffing
  progressive
• have been staffing
  perfect progressive
• has been staffing
  perfect progressive

Past

• staffed
  simple
• had staffed
  perfect
• was staffing
  progressive
• were staffing
  progressive
• had been staffing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will staff
  simple
• will have staffed
  perfect
• will be staffing
  progressive
• will have been staffing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of staff¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English noun staf(fe), stafte, Old English stæf, stæb; cognate with Dutch staf, German Stab, Old Norse stafr staff, Sanskrit root stabh- “support”

Origin of staff²

An Americanism dating back to 1890–95; of obscure origin; perhaps from German Stoff stuff

Explanation

Staff means everyone who works at a particular place. You might suspect that the town library's not a very fun place to work if its staff is always incredibly cranky every time you visit. Staff refers to all of the employees at a business, or especially a school, where the teachers as a group are called "the staff." A completely different meaning of staff is a long wooden stick or rod, particularly one that has a specific purpose — like a walking stick or a weapon. This is the original meaning of staff, from the Old English stæf. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that the word staff was used to mean "group of employees."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

staff staffs staves staffed staffing

Ms. Totenberg, 82, said she had been confused by an announcement from Chief Justice John Roberts about staff retirements.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

City staff are balancing the bar’s cultural and historical significance with concerns raised by the Los Angeles Unified School District and residents about parking, noise, traffic and public safety.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026

NHS Tayside has a policy in place which has procedures for staff to follow in the case of a missing patient and these have been followed in this instance.

From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026

Dozens of police and emergency responders gathered outside the cordoned-off Debsirin Nonthaburi School on Friday, AFP journalists saw, while parents waited to pick up their children and tearful students and staff comforted each other outside.

From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026

For the first time, families in Rochester had household staff, elegant evening clothes, and places to wear them.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock

He helps decide who staffs agencies, what gets funded, which direction the country points in when it comes to research.

From Slate ● Jan. 20, 2026

All three of Maye, Lawrence and Williams saw their fortunes improve with new coaching staffs that oversaw rapid turnarounds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 5, 2026

These funds-of-funds typically employ large staffs to rigorously analyze the track record of other hedge funds in hopes of identifying those with the greatest probability of producing impressive future returns.

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 22, 2025

Soccer’s technical, medical and high-performance staffs, he choose to rest and recuperate during the final summer before the World Cup.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025

And she vaulted up and forward on her staffs fulcrum, sprinting away into the green.

From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill

For many Americans taking a weight-loss drug, Thanksgiving presents a conundrum: Take the weekly dose that staves off hunger, or push it off so they can feast?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025

"In our model, the barrel staves spread out in steps," he says, "each step representing a new limiting factor that becomes active as the cell grows faster."

From Science Daily ● Nov. 11, 2025

France's Emmanuel Macron was on Friday due to pick a head of government tasked with pulling the country out of a political gridlock, in a move that staves off fresh elections for now.

From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2025

It means not all the cuts will go ahead and it staves off effective bankruptcy, but it also saddles Havering with high debt repayments for the next 20 years.

From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2024

He smelled woodsmoke and passed a stack of old lobster traps, blown over and the staves broken in, then a heap of firewood guarded pitifully by some old barrels, also broken.

From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt

They are usually staffed by lifelong public servants who, in an ideal world, are focused solely on making sure government officials properly use their taxpayer-funded budgets and legal authority.

From Slate ● Jul. 15, 2026

It says China's chemical industry is "massive", with 160,000 companies, and despite steps by authorities to implement controls, oversight is "insufficiently staffed and equipped".

From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026

Ultimately, many youth workers say, the benefit of youth clubs is that they are usually staffed by people with deep roots in their communities - in contrast to solutions imposed externally.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

The Olympics will also be staffed by thousands of officers from agencies from across the state.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

Teller saw the lab as a reflection of his own brimming self-esteem—as a huge laboratory staffed with name physicists working in lockstep according to his handcrafted research strategy.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

They are necessary because many of the more than 125,000 employers surveyed monthly about staffing totals send in their responses late, if at all.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

“When a new ownership takes over a company, they make adjustments to the staffing levels,” Enderle said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

If police departments can find the staffing to sustain it, podcasting could help in both recruitment and staff retention, says Janice Iwama, associate professor in American University's department of justice, law and criminology.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

Hours before Clayton's confirmation vote, Pulte boasted that a fifth round of dismissals would bring staffing reductions at the intelligence coordinating body to about 30 percent within weeks.

From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026

Wednesday morning the bake sale table is missing from the courtyard, and at lunch there’s only one person staffing it.

From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen

Related Words

• cadre
• crew
• faculty
• force
• organization
• personnel
• team
• work force