Talk:stale

Can word expired be used instead of stale? Paweł ze Szczecina 18:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

More stale and not staler? The Official Scrabble Dictionary (4th ed.) allows both staler and stalest.

Missing sense: handle
See e.g. rakestale. Equinox ◑ 13:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * rake's tail ?? SemperBlotto (talk) 13:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That is a later folk ety. Equinox ◑ 14:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

RFV discussion: March–July 2015
Etymology 5 (which was Etymology 1 until recently!), which is supposedly modern English, only has two citations - one from 1240 and one from 1340. Did this word (an early form of steal/stealth) survive into modern English, or was it already dead by 1500? Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)


 * RFV-failed. (Moved to Middle English.) - -sche (discuss) 21:13, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–April 2022

 * Clear, free of dregs and lees; old and strong.
 * c. 1300, K. Horn (Laud), 383:
 * Bi forn þe king abenche Red win to schenche And after mete stale Boþe win and ale.
 * c. 1386,, Sir Thopas, 52:
 * Notemuge to putte in ale, Whether it be moyste or stale
 * A fixed position, particularly a soldier's in a battle-line.
 * c. 1450, in C. L. Kingsford, Chrons. London (1905), 123:
 * And at pavelen...þe Erle of Dorzet helde is stale, and þer he toke prisoners.
 * 1485,, Le Morte d'Arthur, V xi 179
 * And syr Florence with his C knyghtes alwey kepte the stale and foughte manly.

Removed / moved to Middle English by Astova.


 * The posts and rungs composing a ladder.

Tagged by Astova, not listed. J3133 (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * "Clear alcohol" should be findable by searching for old texts with "stale ale" and "stale beer". The military sense is likely ME only. The ladder sense may be citeable; the "rungs" part seems to have survived in dialect, although EDD doesn't include any cites. This, that and the other (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

cited Kiwima (talk) 02:10, 17 April 2022 (UTC) RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 04:28, 24 April 2022 (UTC)