vbl. sb. [f. STAKE v.1 + -ING1.] The action of driving in a stake; the action of piercing with or impaling on a stake.
1[?]. Poenit. Ecgberti, iv. 17, in Thorpe, Ags. Laws (1840), II. 208. And ʓif se man for þære stacunge dead biþ þonne fæste he .vii. ʓear.
1420. in For. Acc. 3 Hen. VI., H. In diuersis peciis maeremii et ferri emptis … et expenditis circa stakyng, Pyling et shoyng diuersorum pilorum in portu.
1630. Lennard, trans. Charron’s Wisd., I. xlii. (1670), 156. Those tortures of the wheel, and staking of men alive, came from the North.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva (1679), 12. To leave nothing omitted which may contribute to the stability of our Transplanted Trees, something is to be premis’d concerning their staking.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 7. They will neither require staking nor watering.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 637. Very abundant crops of the scarlet runner are obtained without staking.
1897. J. F. Hobbs, in Outing (U.S.), XXX. 137/2. ‘If you coves’ll lend me a hand at the “staking,”’ as he termed the fence building.
† b. A stake. Obs. rare–1.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., IV. 82. A sadder vyne a bigger stake olofte Mot holde; a lighter vyne is with a lesse Stakynge vpholde.
c. Leather-manuf. The action or process of drawing skins over the stake.
1852. Morfit, Tanning & Currying (1853), 411. The tanned skins … are subjected to what is technically termed staking.
d. Comb.: staking-iron, a leather-dresser’s stake (Cent. Dict., Suppl., 1909); staking jaws, the jaws of a staking machine; staking machine, a machine for softening leather by means of a blade drawn backwards and forwards over the skin.
1897. C. T. Davis, Manuf. Leather, xx. (ed. 2), 273. Staking machines…. In addition they have two other sets of staking jaws, all different and giving different results.
