Staken

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An old form of the past participle of take, meaning grasped, seized or carried off ; an old past participle of stake meaning fixed or fenced in with posts
2. An archaic past form of take, used for something that was seized or received ; a dated past form of stake, used for ground marked off or propped with stakes
3. A literary past participle of take, indicating something that has been grabbed or accepted ; a literary past participle of stake, indicating something fastened or pierced with stakes

Etymology: "Staken" is an archaic or dialect past participle of "stake" in the sense of "to pierce or fix with a stake", and it survives mainly in older texts and some regional speech. The "-en" ending is the classic participle marker that English inherited from Old English, as in "broken", "taken" or "shaken", and "staken" follows that same pattern. Its base verb, "stake" in the sense of fixing something upright on a pointed post, goes back to Old English "staca", meaning a stake or pointed post. That noun is related to Old Norse "stakr" and to older Germanic forms, so the verb grew out of the concrete business of driving a post into the ground. The "stake" meaning of wagering money is a separate, later use with its own history.