stale
1 Americanadjective
-
not fresh; vapid or flat, as beverages; dry or hardened, as bread.
- Antonyms:
- fresh
-
musty; stagnant.
stale air.
-
having lost novelty or interest; hackneyed; trite.
a stale joke.
- Synonyms:
- common, old, stereotyped, uninteresting
-
having lost freshness, vigor, quick intelligence, initiative, or the like, as from overstrain, boredom, or surfeit.
He had grown stale on the job and needed a long vacation.
-
Law. having lost force or effectiveness through absence of action, as a claim.
verb (used with or without object)
verb (used without object)
adjective
-
(esp of food) hard, musty, or dry from being kept too long
-
(of beer, etc) flat and tasteless from being kept open too long
-
(of air) stagnant; foul
-
uninteresting from overuse; hackneyed
stale clichés
-
no longer new
stale news
-
lacking in energy or ideas through overwork or lack of variety
-
banking (of a cheque) not negotiable by a bank as a result of not having been presented within six months of being written
-
law (of a claim, etc) having lost its effectiveness or force, as by failure to act or by the lapse of time
verb
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
- stalely adverb
- staleness noun
Etymology
Origin of stale1
1250–1300; Middle English; akin to Middle Dutch stel in same sense; perhaps akin to stand or to stale 2
Origin of stale2
1400–50; late Middle English stalen to urinate; cognate with German stallen, Danish stalle, Norwegian, Swedish stalla
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"We had a lovely video sent to us about the cows being hand-fed stale baguettes, everyone loved that video," Haywood added.
From BBC
It’s stale to nearly all but his biggest sycophants.
From Salon
It was only slightly stale, and I slept better than I had in ages.
From Literature
Nor were they ever considering how the first fight went in 2015 – delivered five years too late and as stale as feared.
From BBC
"She represents a kind of originality that could help revive that slightly stale franchise," says Burrell.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
