Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use stale in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Stale means no longer fresh, in reference to food, urine, straw, wounds, etc. Example: “The bug was found to be caused by stale data in the cache.”

Examples of stale by meaning

adjectiveNo longer fresh, in reference to food, urine, straw, wounds, etc.

  • Another stale roll and cup of water sat on the tray he carried.2012, Stephen Woodworth, In Golden Blood: Number 3 in series

adjectiveNo longer fresh, new, or interesting, in reference to ideas and immaterial things; clichéd, hackneyed, dated.

  • Mark would tell him to quit with the stale joke, already2002, Mark Lawson, And They Rose Up: Days of Retribution

adjectiveNot new or recent; having been in place or in effect for some time.

  • One good clue to a stale green light is the pedestrian signal.2014, David L. Hough, Street Strategies for Motorcyclists

adjectiveUnreasonably long in coming, in reference to claims and actions.

  • a stale affidavit
  • a stale demand

adjectiveOf data: out of date; not synchronized with the newest copy.

  • The bug was found to be caused by stale data in the cache.

verbTo become stale; to grow odious from excessive exposure or consumption.

  • Vi's penchant for puns had struck him as cute when he first met her, but it had staled somewhat over the years.1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger

nounOne of the rungs on a ladder.

  • Itt . for a ladder for the use of the Chappel 33 stales long , at 2ᵈ yᵉ stale 00₤ 05s. 6d.1914, Archaeologia Cantiana - Volume 30, page 173
  • Ash was used for stales (ladder rungs).1998, Barney Edward Daley, Tobacco Parish: A Collection of South Windsor's Memories

verbTo stalemate.

  • In China, however, a player who stales his opponent's King, wins the game.1903, H. J. R. Murray, Brit. Chess. Mag., section 283

More sentences with stale

  • This bread is so stale and hard, I can barely cut it.From the entry hard
  • The bread roll crumbled when I tried to slice it; it was too stale.From the entry crumble
  • It is hard to live on the minimum wage. They lived on stale bread. Man shall not live by bread alone.From the entry live
  • We were served stale bread and weak tea.From the entry weak
  • Although stale, the bread was edible.From the entry edible
  • The major reason that bread stales is not moisture loss, but rather a process called retrogradation, in which the starch molecules in the bread crystallize.From the entry retrogradation
  • So we’re no nearer to finding a culprit?” is what keeps the schtick from ever growing stale.2025 January 3, Christina Izzo, “Cunk On Life is brilliantly funny (and depressingly timely)”, in AV Club. From the entry line of questioning
  • He had absorbed too much stale water and overlooped a bit.2014, Thorne Smith, The Stray Lamb, page 183. From the entry overloop
  • That's especially true in the age of hashtagification, when today's vibrant meme is tomorrow's stale cliché.2014 December 15, Ben Zimmer, “The Linguistic Power of the Protest Phrase ’I Can’t Breathe’”, in Wired, San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast…. From the entry hashtagification
  • In the front room, full of stale cigar-smoke, the Germans began their interrogation.2013, Airey Neave, Little Cyclone: The Girl who Started the Comet Line. From the entry cigar-smoke
  • Clubgoers and jet-laggers, rejoice: you don't have to subsist on stale bar peanuts in Italy.2008 February, Italy, 8th edition, Footscray, Victoria: Lonely Planet Publications, →ISBN, page 74. From the entry jet-lagger
  • The same type as when it has rained, remained humid, a fetid stale of ozone over everything.2007, Constantine Sult, chapter 1, in The Murder of Linen, [United States]: Brown Paper Publishing, page 1. From the entry afterthought
  • I toothbrushed the stale rum stink from my mouth and stared at myself in the cabinet mirror.2004, Iceberg Slim, Trick Baby. From the entry toothbrush
  • Two halves of a burger bun, hard and stale and burgerless, crusty and forgotten.2003, Kevin Brooks, Martyn Pig. From the entry burgerless
  • This was stale, sweaty and a bit on the outhousey side.1996, Lynn Kurland, chapter 3, in A Dance Through Time, New York, N.Y.: Jove Books, →ISBN, page 33. From the entry outhousey
  • Stale milk was preferred over nonstale by 68% of the panelists when used in commercial instant potatoes.1982, Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Encyclia. From the entry nonstale
  • Soviet sorts of baranka-type articles, such as sushkas, can be kept for many months without going stale.1971, Foreign Trade, U.S.S.R. Ministry of Foreign Trade, page 42, columns 1–2. From the entry baranka
  • Lissy shuddered in the stale smells and vaultlike chill of the kitchen.1935, Kathleen Thompson Norris, Shining Windows, page 77. From the entry vaultlike
  • Then they flew down into the street and simply raved over a stale pretzel, ten days dead.1918, Gelett Burgess, Ain't Angie Awful!, Chapter 8. From the entry pretzel
  • The town was abuzz with excitement for an hour, when the news became stale.1913 July, Peter B[ernhard] Kyne, “The Long Chance: The Tale of a Hat Ranch”, in Charles K[ellogg] Field, editor, Sunset: The Pacific…. From the entry abuzz
  • Stale asks him to train with him, and Arthur accepts, but he finds Stale suspicious and calls him out on it.2023 August 5, Jacki Jing, “Episode 5 - The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior”, in Anime News Network, archived…. From the entry protecc
  • Where, lingering lovingly on kippered lies, They babble over chestnuts and their punch And stale round-table jests of years ago.2019, Robert Baldwin Ross, Masques & Phases. From the entry kippered
  • When it comes to investment theories, nothing new under the sun exists because ideas go stale and then get reinvented.2015, Tony Levene, Investing for Dummies, 4th edition, →ISBN, page 93. From the entry what goes around comes around
  • Julianne Moore’s Chanel was woefully drippy, Jennifer Aniston’s mermaid Versace was stale as five-day-old bread and Kerry Washington wore maid-of-honour chic.2015 February 23, “Oscars 2015: 10 things we learned”, in The Guardian (London). From the entry drippy
  • When that little game becomes stale, Simon’s adolescent son Josh (Evan Ross) is itching to step into his dad’s shoes.2011 August 25, Stephen Holden, “'The Family Tree' Directed by Vivi Friedman - Review”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry pseudorape
  • The long, yellow face was framed in side whiskers; there hung about him the nidor of stale cigar smoke.2008, Edgar Wallace, Devil Man, page 9. From the entry nidor
  • Then it develops a stale freezery flavour.2008 January 24, David A. Harding, “Feb 01 meeting?”, in CHLUG (Google Groups), archived from the original on 13 Apr 2026. From the entry freezery
  • The room hadn't been swamped out in memory of man, and it smelled strongly of stale cigarette smoke and vomit.1992, Dana Stabenow, A Cold Day for Murder, →ISBN, page 58. From the entry swamp out
  • And what a nastyass stale butt it was too, already smoked once and picked out of the ashtray, tasting burnt smoke.1991, J. R. Creech, Music and Crime, Random House, →ISBN, page 134. From the entry nastyass
  • The assortment of packets of bread products which become stale slowly was expanded (wheat, table and Borodinskiy bread).1981 October 28, I. Popov, anonymous translator, “Nutrition on a Long Space Flight”, in USSR Report: Space (JPRS 79319), number 13…. From the entry Borodinskiy bread

Meaning of stale

  1. adjective No longer fresh, in reference to food, urine, straw, wounds, etc.
  2. adjective No longer fresh, new, or interesting, in reference to ideas and immaterial things; clichéd, hackneyed, dated.
  3. adjective Not new or recent; having been in place or in effect for some time.

Full definition of stale

Questions about stale in a sentence

How do you use stale in a sentence?
Stale is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “The bug was found to be caused by stale data in the cache.”
What is a short sentence with stale?
“a stale affidavit”
What does stale mean?
Stale means no longer fresh, in reference to food, urine, straw, wounds, etc.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stale (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use stale in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/stale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.