Stave has several related meanings, all connected to the idea of holding something back or keeping it together:

To stave off something means to delay it or prevent it from happening, at least for a while. You might eat a snack to stave off hunger until dinner, or a soccer team might play defense to stave off the other team's attacks. When a castle was under siege, defenders tried to stave off the attackers as long as possible. The phrase suggests effort and temporary success: you're pushing back against something that wants to happen.

A stave is also one of the curved wooden strips that form the sides of a barrel. Coopers (barrel makers) carefully fit these staves together and bind them with metal hoops. If a stave breaks, the barrel falls apart and can't hold anything. This connects to the verb meaning: just as staves hold a barrel together, when you stave off disaster, you're holding things together under pressure.

In music, a stave (also called a staff) is the set of five horizontal lines on which musical notes are written. Each line and space represents a different pitch, creating a map that shows musicians exactly which notes to play.