stable

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsteɪ.bəɫ/
• Rhymes: -eɪbəl

From Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-Norman, from Old French estable, from Latin stabulum (“stall, stand”).

stable (plural stables)

1. A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) animals with hoofs, especially horses.

   There were stalls for fourteen horses in the squire's stables.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 5, in The Celebrity:

     We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.

2. (metonymically) All the racehorses of a particular stable, i.e. belonging to a given owner.
3. (Scotland) A set of advocates; a barristers' chambers.
4. (sumo) An organization of sumo wrestlers who live and train together.

• (sumo organization): heya

• stablemate

stable (third-person singular simple present stables, present participle stabling, simple past and past participle stabled)

1. (transitive) to put or keep (an animal) in a stable.
   • 1954, C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, Collins, 1998, Chapter 7,

     "I hope your have been quite comfortable." ¶ "Never better stabled in my life," said Bree.

2. (intransitive) to dwell in a stable.
3. (rail transport, transitive) to park (a rail vehicle)

• (rail transport): outstable

• stabled
• stabler
• stable-boy
• stablehand

Borrowed from Latin stabilis (itself from stare (“stand”) + -abilis (“able”))

stable (comparative more stable, superlative most stable)

1. Relatively unchanging, permanent; firmly fixed or established; consistent; not easily moved, altered, or destroyed.

   He was in a stable relationship.

   a stable government

   • Rogers

     In this region of chance, […] where nothing is stable.

2. (computing) Of software: established to be relatively free of bugs, as opposed to a beta version.

   You should download the 1.9 version of that video editing software: it is the latest stable version. The newer beta version has some bugs.

3. (computer science, of a sorting algorithm) That maintains the relative order of items that compare as equal.

• fixed

• instable
• mobile
• unstable

• Bestla, ablest, ablets, bastle, belast, blates, bleats, tables

Borrowed from Latin stabilis. Replaced Middle French, Old French estable, an earlier borrowing from the same Latin source.

• IPA^(key): /stabl/

• Audio

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stable (plural stables)

1. stable (relatively unchanging)

• instable

• stabiliser
• stabilité

• “stable” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• baltes, tables

From the noun stabel

stable (imperative stabl or stable, present tense stabler, passive stables, simple past and past participle stabla or stablet, present participle stablende)

1. to stack, pile

• “stable” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “stable” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

From the noun stabel

stable (present tense stablar, past tense stabla, past participle stabla, passive infinitive stablast, present participle stablande, imperative stabl/stable)

1. to stack, pile

• stabla

• “stable” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.