Stale

How to spell stale

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stale

What does stale mean?

1. adjectiveNo longer fresh, having lost flavour, moisture, or appeal through age.

Stale in a sentence

• The bread had gone stale after sitting out all weekend.

• The office felt cramped and the air was stale by midafternoon.

Where does stale come from?

Language of origin: French

Stale first appears in English in the mid 1200s, where it described ale or wine that had been allowed to stand long enough to settle and turn clear of sediment, a quality once thought desirable. It is generally traced to Anglo-French and Old French estale, meaning 'standing' or 'stationary', which in turn grew from a Germanic root tied to the idea of standing still, the same family that gives us 'stall' and 'stand'. From the literal notion of liquid that had stood too long, the meaning soon shifted to the negative sense we know today: bread, air, or news that has sat past its freshness. By extension it came to cover anything that has lost its novelty or vigour, such as a stale joke or a stale routine. The spelling is mercifully simple, a short root ending in a silent 'e' that lengthens the vowel, with no doubled letters or foreign clusters to trip the writer.

How the word is built

• stale (a single root adjective; no productive prefix or suffix)