not fresh; vapid or flat, as beverages; dry or hardened, as bread.
musty; stagnant: stale air.
having lost novelty or interest; hackneyed; trite: a stale joke.
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),staled,stal·ing.
to make or become stale.
Origin of stale
1
1250–1300; Middle English; akin to Middle Dutch stel in same sense; perhaps akin to stand or to stale2
SYNONYMS FOR stale
1 hard, tasteless, sour, insipid.
3 uninteresting, stereotyped, old, common.
SEE SYNONYMS FOR stale ON THESAURUS.COM
ANTONYMS FOR stale
1 fresh.
SEE ANTONYMS FOR stale ON THESAURUS.COM
OTHER WORDS FROM stale
stalely,adverbstaleness,noun
Words nearby stale
stalagmite, stalagmites, stalagmometer, St. Albans, St. Albert, stale, stale bull, stalemate, Stalin, Stalinabad, Stalingrad
Definition for stale (2 of 2)
stale2
[ steyl ]
/ steɪl /
verb (used without object),staled,stal·ing.
(of livestock, especially horses) to urinate.
Origin of stale
2
1400–50; late Middle English stalen to urinate; cognate with German stallen,Danish stalle,Norwegian, Swedish stalla
Conversely, if the queue worker does not run frequently enough, the queue will stay high, and stale pages will remain in cache and be served to end users for longer than desired.
Meet the Baconator|by Frank Sharpe|October 2, 2020|ProPublica
You don’t want your social media feeds to be filled with stale, recycled material.
Five content promotion strategies SaaS marketers should implement today|Izabelle Hundrev|August 28, 2020|Search Engine Watch
Both are stale and boring, and whichever one you end up having in the end is still unpleasant.
Team Peeta or Team Gale: Why the ‘Hunger Games’ Love Triangle Ruins ‘Mockingjay – Part 1’|Kevin Fallon|November 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
To call them mediocre, uninspiring, and stale would be overly generous.
Latinos Aren’t a ‘Cheap Date’ for Democrats Anymore|Ruben Navarrette Jr.|November 11, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The issues seem “stale” only because the commentators demand to be entertained.
What Al Franken’s Normcore Senate Race Can Teach Other Democrats|Ana Marie Cox|October 27, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Instead, they will be at best a stale and bitter punchline of our times and then fade, unloved, into obscurity.
A Brief History of Wingnuts in America; From George Washington to Woodstock|John Avlon|August 17, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Fine, she says, but they lived on three stale sandwiches a day.
‘We Cannot Return to Guatemala’: An Immigrant Mother’s Plea|Sarah Moga|July 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
One slice of stale bread may be cut into cubes, fried in deep fat, and the croutons put in the soup.
The Italian Cook Book|Maria Gentile
They rubbed their boots with stale meat when they went the rounds, then left the traps for a week.
Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac|Ernest Thompson Seton
There were loaves of stale bread, bunches of onions and strings of sausages behind the small window-panes.
Under Western Eyes|Joseph Conrad
And the room was stale with bad air; like the masses, he, too, slept with windows shut.
Tramping on Life|Harry Kemp
"That sense of things is the flat, stale, unprofitable stuff we hear about," he added.
The Opened Shutters|Clara Louise Burnham
British Dictionary definitions for stale (1 of 2)
stale1
/ (steɪl) /
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; hackneyedstale clichés
no longer newstale 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
to make or become stale
Derived forms of stale
stalely, adverbstaleness, noun
Word Origin for stale
C13 (originally applied to liquor in the sense: well matured): probably via Norman French from Old French estale (unattested) motionless, of Frankish origin; related to stall1, install
British Dictionary definitions for stale (2 of 2)
stale2
/ (steɪl) /
verb
(intr)(of livestock) to urinate
noun
the urine of horses or cattle
Word Origin for stale
C15: perhaps from Old French estaler to stand in one position; see stall1; compare Middle Low German stallen to urinate, Greek stalassein to drip