Other forms: stakes, staked, staking
A stake is a pointed post you hammer into the ground. The one propping up a young tomato plant, the ones a tent's ropes pull against, the one a vampire meets in the films.
Every other meaning grows out of that post. Money you put down on a bet is your stake, so raising the stakes means putting more at risk and a high-stakes exam is one you cannot afford to fail; what is at stake is what you stand to lose. Own part of a company and you have a stake in it, a thirty per cent stake, and anyone with a stake in something is a stakeholder. To stake a claim is to knock posts in around a piece of land and say it is yours, and a police stake-out is a long wait, watching. Watch the spelling: steak is the meat, stake is everything here.
1nounpostA pointed piece of wood or metal driven into the ground to hold something up or to mark a place.~25%
“He drove a stake in beside each young tree.”
synonyms: post, peg
2nounstakeA share in a business or project that you own, and so an interest in how it turns out.~57%
“The family still holds a forty per cent stake in the brewery.”
3nounbetMoney risked on a bet or in a game.~14%
“The stakes were small, a pound a hand.”
4verbvaluableTo risk money or something valuable on a result.~2%
“He staked his savings on a horse called Marigold.”
5verbsupportTo support or fasten something with a stake.~2%
“We staked the tomatoes before the wind got up.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 29 sentences found in the wild and placed 27 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
stake is a pointed post.
Stake is an old Germanic word that has barely moved. Old English staca meant 'pin, tack, stake', from Proto-Germanic *stako and Proto-Indo-European *stog-, which meant much the same. Dutch staak, Norwegian stake and Spanish estaca are all the same post. The wooden thing came first by centuries; the betting and the ownership borrowed the picture later.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)teg- (pole)
Proto-Indo-European
*stog-
Proto-Germanic
*stakô — stake
Proto-West Germanic
*stakō
Old English
staca — pin, tack, stake
Middle English
stake
English, today
stake
Built from
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, stq Stak, West Frisian staak, Dutch staak, Low German Stake, Norwegian stake, Spanish estaca.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA