stale

CEFRB2

/steɪl/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    No longer fresh or pleasant to eat or smell.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    No longer fresh, new, or interesting, in reference to ideas and immaterial things; clichéd, hackneyed, dated.

Examples

  • This popcorn tastes stale. I wonder when it was popped.

  • Doist thou smyle to reade this stale and beggarlye stuffe.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Not new or recent; having been in place or in effect for some time.

  2. Clear, free of dregs and lees; old and strong.

  3. No longer fresh, in reference to food, urine, straw, wounds, etc.

More examples

In context

  • New freshe blood to ouersprinkle their stale mete that it may seme...newly kylled.

  • Near-synonyms: gone bad, spoiled; see also Thesaurus:rotten

  • The beer is stale.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The crackers became blank after being left open in the air for days.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Middle English stale, from Old French estal (“fixed position, place”), but probably originally from Proto-Germanic *stāną (“to stand”): compare West Flemish stel in the same sense for ‘beer’ and ‘urine’.