staple

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: AS. stapul, stapol, stapel, a step, a prop, post, table, fr. stapan to step, go, raise; akin to D. stapel a pile, stocks, emporium, G. stapela heap, mart, stake, staffel step of a ladder, Sw. stapel, Dan. stabel, and E. step; cf. OF. estaple a mart, F. étape. See Step.

1. A settled mart; an emporium; a city or town to which merchants brought commodities for sale or exportation in bulk; a place for wholesale traffic.

The customs of Alexandria were very great, it having been the staple of the Indian trade.— John Arbuthnot

For the increase of trade and the encouragement of the worthy burgesses of Woodstock, her majesty was minded to erect the town into a staple for wool.— Sir Walter Scott

☞ In England, formerly, the king's staple was established in certain ports or towns, and certain goods could not be exported without being first brought to these places to be rated and charged with the duty payable to the king or the public. The principal commodities on which customs were levied were wool, skins, and leather; and these were originally the staple commodities.

2. Hence: Place of supply; source; fountain head.

Whitehall naturally became the chief staple of news. Whenever there was a rumor that any thing important had happened or was about to happen, people hastened thither to obtain intelligence from the fountain head.— Thomas Babington Macaulay

3. The principal commodity of traffic in a market; a principal commodity or production of a country or district; as, wheat, maize, and cotton are great staples of the United States.

We should now say, Cotton is the great staple, that is, the established merchandise, of Manchester.— Abp. Richard Chenevix Trench

4. The principal constituent in anything; chief item.

5. Unmanufactured material; raw material.

6. The fiber of wool, cotton, flax, or the like; as, a coarse staple; a fine staple; a long or short staple.

7. A loop of metal such as iron, or a bar or wire, bent and formed with two points to be driven into wood, to hold a hook, pin, or the like.

8. Specifically: A small loop of metal such as steel, bent into a U-shape with the points sharpened, used to fasten sheets of paper together by driving the staple{8} through the stacked sheets and into a formed receptacle which curls the ends in and backward, thus holding the papers firmly together; also, a similar, slightly larger such fastener which may be driven into wood to fasten objects to a wooden backing.

9. Mining (a) A shaft, smaller and shorter than the principal one, joining different levels. (b) A small pit.

10. A district granted to an abbey. obsolete William Camden

1. Pertaining to, or being a market or staple for, commodities; as, a staple town. rare

2. Established in commerce; occupying the markets; settled; as, a staple trade. John Dryden

3. Fit to be sold; marketable. rare Jonathan Swift

4. Regularly produced or manufactured in large quantities; belonging to wholesale traffic; principal; chief.

Wool, the great staple commodity of England.— Henry Hallam

1. To sort according to its staple; as, to staple cotton.

2. To fasten together with a staple{9} or staples; as, to staple a check to a letter.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: GCIDE editors

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

<language> A programming language written at Manchester (University?) and used at ICL in the early 1970s for writing the test suites. STAPLE was based on Algol 68 and had a very advanced optimising compiler.

(2003-02-28)

<language> St Andrews Applicative Persistent Language. Language combining functional programming with persistent storage, developed at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Tony Davie, <ad@cs.st-andrews.ac.uk>.

(2007-03-22)