Erin McKean

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.

American Editor

Paul Kalanithi

The physician's duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face - and make sense of - their own existence.

American Writer

Rufus Wainwright

My love of maple syrup. I've been known to knock back a can over a couple days: A swig here, a swig there, and next thing you know it's gone. It's a habit I have to stave off. I don't want to lose all my teeth.

Canadian Musician

Joshua Ferris

Everyone desires relationships and community. Most people want to belong to a cohesive, like-minded group. It staves off loneliness. It promotes identity. These are natural and very human instincts.

American Author

Rachel Sklar

In university, in a vain attempt to stave off the frosh fifteen, I used to melt fat-free cheese over broccoli, onions and cauliflower in the cafeteria microwave. That earned me few friends.

Canadian Lawyer

Samantha Power

My basic feeling about military intervention is that it should be a last resort, undertaken only to stave off large-scale bloodshed.

Irish Public Servant

Daniel Radcliffe

What I learned is that acting is to a large extent about trying to stave off self-doubt long enough to be natural and real onstage.

British Actor

Ramez Naam

Solar power is going to be absolutely essential to meeting growing energy demands while staving off climate change.

Carrie Brownstein

Curiosity is what keeps me open to a sense of hope. It staves off negativity.

American Musician

Dan Buettner

Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works.

American Explorer

Used to describe a temporary solution, not solving the problem completely.

Temporary Relief

Often used metaphorically to describe preventing non-physical threats.

Metaphorical Use

Implies an urgent action is required to delay something negative.

Urgent Action

Stave refers to the parts that make up wooden barrels or similar structures.

Barrel Construction

Staves are traditionally made from wood, suggestive of craftsmanship.

Wooden Item

In woodworking, 'stave' is a technical term not usually known by non-experts.

Technical Term

To stave in something means to break it with substantial force.

Forceful Action

Using 'stave in' implies some degree of destruction or damage.

Destruction Implied

In music, a stave is a set of five horizontal lines for writing notes.

Music Notation

Musical stave is also known as staff in American English.

Alternate Name

 which means cutting methane pollution is a necessary and fast-acting stimulus for our carbon budget. If methane emissions from agriculture and the oil and gas industry can be eliminated in this decade, we might be able to stave off catastrophes like the loss of the Arctic sea ice and glaciers all around the world.

The 55 Gigaton Challenge...

 down the treadmill does when they do do intentional physical activity it's things they enjoy they tend to walk the only proven way to stave off cognitive decline and they all tend to have a garden they know how to set up their life in the right way so they have the right outlook each of these cultures

How to live to be 100+ -...

 That burns calories just as much as going on the treadmill does. When they do do intentional physical activity, it's the things they enjoy. They tend to walk, the only proven way to stave off cognitive decline, and they all tend to have a garden. They know how to set up their life in the right way

Dan Buettner: How to...

 that puts as much distance between ourselves and nature as is humanly possible. Our modern funerary practices are designed to stave off the natural processes that happen to a body after death. In other words, they're meant to prevent us from decomposing. But the truth

When I die, recompose me...

 Industry will not agree to increased regulation unless it believes this will stave off even more regulation or perhaps knock some competitors out of the market. Nor can companies agree to do certain things, for example raise the prices of their unhealthy products,

In praise of conflict PIPE...

 they were very very heavy we had very few trucks that should come out stave it into again Drive and what you call short rains now me equivalent to the normal long range that we get every year so if we double that or we say one and a half

Safari Live - Day 276 PIPE...

 Like the compounds in smoke, these sop up free radicals and stave off rancid flavors that can develop in foods like oils, cheese, and cereal. Other antioxidants like citric acid and ascorbic acid help cut produce keep its color

Are food preservatives...

 proposed a new world he called Half-Earth, a plan to stave off mass extinction by devoting half the surface of the earth completely to nature and then consolidating human development to the other half that would remain.

Liam Young: Planet City...

 this aquatic idea has been miscategorized as lunatic fringe, and it is not lunatic fringe. And the ironic thing about it is that they are not staving off the aquatic theory to protect a theory of their own,

Elaine Morgan says we...

 Frustration. Success would have staved off hunger for a week.