stale

¹

[ steyl ]

adjective

, stal·er, stal·est.

1. not fresh; vapid or flat, as beverages; dry or hardened, as bread.

   Synonyms: insipid, sour, tasteless, hard

   Antonyms: fresh

2. musty; stagnant:

   stale air.

3. having lost novelty or interest; hackneyed; trite:

   a stale joke.

   Synonyms: uninteresting, old, stereotyped, common

4. having lost freshness, vigor, quick intelligence, initiative, or the like, as from overstrain, boredom, or surfeit:

   He had grown stale on the job and needed a long vacation.

5. Law. having lost force or effectiveness through absence of action, as a claim.

verb (used with or without object)

, staled, stal·ing.

1. to make or become stale.

stale

²

[ steyl ]

verb (used without object)

, staled, stal·ing.

1. (of livestock, especially horses) to urinate.

stale

¹

/ steɪl /

verb

1. intr (of livestock) to urinate

noun

1. the urine of horses or cattle

stale

²

/ steɪl /

adjective

1. (esp of food) hard, musty, or dry from being kept too long
2. (of beer, etc) flat and tasteless from being kept open too long
3. (of air) stagnant; foul
4. uninteresting from overuse; hackneyed

   stale clichés

5. no longer new

   stale news

6. lacking in energy or ideas through overwork or lack of variety
7. banking (of a cheque) not negotiable by a bank as a result of not having been presented within six months of being written
8. law (of a claim, etc) having lost its effectiveness or force, as by failure to act or by the lapse of time

verb

1. to make or become stale

Derived Forms

• ˈstaleness, noun
• ˈstalely, adverb

Other Words From

• stalely adverb
• staleness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of stale¹

1250–1300; Middle English; akin to Middle Dutch stel in same sense; perhaps akin to stand or to stale ²

Origin of stale²

1400–50; late Middle English stalen to urinate; cognate with German stallen, Danish stalle, Norwegian, Swedish stalla

Word History and Origins

Origin of stale¹

C15: perhaps from Old French estaler to stand in one position; see stall ¹; compare Middle Low German stallen to urinate, Greek stalassein to drip

Origin of stale²

C13 (originally applied to liquor in the sense: well matured): probably via Norman French from Old French estale (unattested) motionless, of Frankish origin; related to stall ¹, install

Example Sentences

To make them, I start by cutting a loaf of stale sourdough bread into large cubes and scattering them across a sheet tray.

From Washington Post

If Zoom and other video chats have grown stale, hosting your own small get-togethers is a possibility.

From No Straight News

The product lines in the CPG category are all hotly competitive, and profit margins, already low, shrivel quickly once a brand grows stale.

From Fortune

Kohl’s problem is that too many of its store brands grew stale, particularly in apparel.

From Fortune

Conversely, if the queue worker does not run frequently enough, the queue will stay high, and stale pages will remain in cache and be served to end users for longer than desired.

From ProPublica

Both are stale and boring, and whichever one you end up having in the end is still unpleasant.

From The Daily Beast

To call them mediocre, uninspiring, and stale would be overly generous.

From The Daily Beast

The issues seem “stale” only because the commentators demand to be entertained.

From The Daily Beast

Instead, they will be at best a stale and bitter punchline of our times and then fade, unloved, into obscurity.

From The Daily Beast

Fine, she says, but they lived on three stale sandwiches a day.

From The Daily Beast

The outside, also, well polished with sweet oil and stale milk, then enveloped in chamois leather.

From Project Gutenberg

They also know how to blow out and dress stale poultry, so as to make it look quite fresh and plump.

From Project Gutenberg

It reeked with stale tobacco-smoke, the smell of cookery, and the odors of frowsy clothes.

From Project Gutenberg

Long habit had not made her merit stale to me—the flavor of it was always fresh and new.

From Project Gutenberg

Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly stale effusion.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• corny
• dull
• hackneyed
• shopworn
• threadbare
• tired