Obs. [f. ALE- 4.]
1. A stake or post set up before an alehouse, to bear a garland, bush, or other sign, or as a sign itself; an alepole. Also fig.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 667. A garland had he set upon his heed, As gret as it were for an ale-stake.
1509. Barclay, Ship of Fooles (1570), 32. To the wine and ale stakes to renne.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 1557, 642/1. Set vp for a bare signe, as a tauerners bush or tapsters ale stake.
1553–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1684), II. 50/1. This Popish Decree and Indulgense, as a new Merchandise or Ale-stake to get Money.
1693. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen., 64. An Ale-stake … vide May-pole.
2. A frequenter of the alehouse; a tippler or sot.
1583. Babington, Wks., 104. If he be a drunken alestake, a ticktack tauerner.
1656. Trapp, Exp. 1 Tim. iii. 3 (1868), III. 641/1. No Ale-stake, tavern-haunter, that sits close at it.
