Stab

See also: stab, STAB, stáb, and štab

German

Etymology

From Middle High German stap, stab, from Old High German stab, from Proto-West Germanic *stab.

Cognate with English staff, Dutch staf, Swedish stav, Old Norse stafr. The meaning co-workers is secondary: in the German word Generalstab (“General Staff”) the meaning changed from the staff as a symbol of authority to the group of military officers and later to any group of co-workers.^[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ʃtaːp/
Audio: (file)
Rhymes: -aːp
Homophone: starb (some speakers)

Noun

Stab m (strong, genitive Stabes or Stabs, plural Stäbe, diminutive Stäbchen n)

rod, staff, baton
staff (employees)
(heraldry) palet

Declension

Declension of Stab [masculine, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Stab	die	Stäbe
genitive	eines	des	Stabes, Stabs	der	Stäbe
dative	einem	dem	Stab, Stabe¹	den	Stäben
accusative	einen	den	Stab	die	Stäbe

¹Now rare, see notes.

Derived terms

stabartig, stabförmig

Related terms

Descendants

Polish: sztab m
Russian: штаб m (štab)

References

^ Friedrich Kluge (1989) “Stab”, in Elmar Seebold, editor, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache [Etymological Dictionary of the German Language] (in German), 22nd edition, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN