Other forms: staples
A staple is a U-shaped wire fastener driven into a surface. A box of staples, staple gun, staple the pages.
The small office kind bends its legs over on the far side, which is what holds; the fencing kind is a heavy U hammered into a post. A staple is also a basic food that a population lives on — rice, wheat, maize — and by extension anything relied on: a staple of the diet, a staple of the repertoire. Note stapler; and that both senses come from a word meaning a post.
1nounstapleA U-shaped wire fastener.
“The machine ran out of staples, so I held the pages together with a paper clip.”
2nounbasicA basic food or a thing relied on.
“Rice is the staple for roughly half the world.”
staple is a fastener or a basic item.
Old French estaple meant a market or trading post, from a Germanic word for a post. The fastener and the staple food both come from that idea of a fixed point everything depends on.
Middle English
staple
English, today
staple
The Staple From Middle English staple. From Middle English staple, from Anglo-Norman estaple, Old French estaple (“market, (trading) post”), from Latin stapula, from Frankish stapul, ultimately from Proto-Germanic stapulaz (“post”), from Proto-Indo-European stebʰ- (“post, stem”). Compare staff. a doublet of étape and etymology 2.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA