Etymology

stake

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Today it means: A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay. Full definition →

Middle English stake ← Old English staca ← Proto-West Germanic *stakō
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stake · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*stog-
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*stakô“stake”
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*stakō
  4. Old English · inherited fromstaca“pin, tack, stake”
  5. Middle English · inherited fromstake
  6. English todaystake

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, Saterland Frisian Stak, West Frisian staak, Dutch staak, Low German Stake, Norwegian stake, Spanish estaca.

Stake · proper noun2

English surname, from the noun stake. Compare Staff, Stack.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Germanic*stakô all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.