[f. STAPLE sb.1] trans. † a. To clasp, fasten (a helmet): cf. STAPLE sb.1 1 c. Obs. b. To secure with or as with a staple.
13[?]. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 606. Þenne hentes he þe helme … þat was stapled stifly, & stoffed wyth-inne.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, I. 125. [He] Brocht it till Scwne, and stapill maid it thar, Quhar kingis was cround viij hundyr ȝer and mar, Befor the tyme at king Eduuard it fand.
1742. Woodroofe, in Hanway’s Trav. (1762), I. II. xxiii. 98. They cover them with canvass well tarred, and lay battins over it every three or four inches, stapling them fast with a kind of crooked nail.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., I. xxix. 190. I was loaded with irons and stapled to the deck.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), IV. 2. An iron ring that was stapled into a post.
1896. D. Pollock, in Strand Mag., XII. 322/2. The standing ways are securely stapled to heavy cross-blocks of timber.
