staple

¹ American  

[stey-puhl] / ˈsteɪ pəl /

noun

1. a short piece of wire bent so as to bind together papers, sections of a book, or the like, by driving the ends through the sheets and clinching them on the other side.

2. a similar, often U -shaped piece of wire or metal with pointed ends for driving into a surface to hold a hasp, hook, pin, bolt, wire, or the like.

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verb (used with object)

stapled, stapling

1. to secure or fasten by a staple or staples.

   to staple three sheets together.

staple ² American  

[stey-puhl] / ˈsteɪ pəl /

noun

1. a principal raw material or commodity grown or manufactured in a locality.

2. a principal commodity in a mercantile field; goods in steady demand or of known or recognized quality.

3. a basic or necessary item of food.

   She bought flour, sugar, salt, and other staples.

4. a basic or principal item, thing, feature, element, or part.

   Cowboy dramas are a staple on television.

5. the fiber of wool, cotton, flax, rayon, etc., considered with reference to length and fineness.

6. Textiles. a standard length of textile fibers, representing the average of such fibers taken collectively, as short-staple or long-staple cotton.

7. History/Historical. a town or place appointed by royal authority as the seat of a body of merchants having the exclusive right of purchase of certain classes of goods for export.

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adjective

1. chief or prominent among the products exported or produced by a country or district; chiefly or largely dealt in or consumed.

2. basic, chief, or principal.

   staple industries.

3. principally used.

   staple subjects of conversation.

verb (used with object)

stapled, stapling

1. to sort or classify according to the staple or fiber, as wool.

staple ¹ British  

/ ˈsteɪpəl /

adjective

1. of prime importance; principal

   staple foods

2. (of a commodity) forming a predominant element in the product, consumption, or trade of a nation, region, etc

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noun

1. a staple commodity

2. a main constituent; integral part

3. a principal raw material produced or grown in a region

4. the fibre of wool, cotton, etc, graded as to length and fineness

5. (in medieval Europe) a town appointed to be the exclusive market for one or more major exports of the land

verb

1. (tr) to arrange or sort (wool, cotton, etc) according to length and fineness

staple ² British  

/ ˈsteɪpəl /

noun

1. a short length of thin wire bent into a square U-shape, used to fasten papers, cloth, etc

2. a short length of stiff wire formed into a U-shape with pointed ends, used for holding a hasp to a post, securing electric cables, etc

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verb

1. (tr) to secure (papers, wire, etc) with a staple or staples

Etymology

Origin of staple¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English stapel “support, stake, post,” Old English stapol “post, column”; cognate with Middle Dutch stapel “foundation,” German Stapel “pile,” Old Norse stǫpull “pillar”

Origin of staple²

First recorded in 1350–1400; late Middle English staple, stapel “official market where merchants have trading rights,” from Anglo-French staple, Old French estaple, from Medieval Latin stapula, staplus, from Middle Dutch stapel, stapol

Explanation

Bread. Milk. Gasoline. Xboxes. What do these all have in common? They're all a staple of most people's consumption — basic products for which there will always be a demand. Staple also has the broader more abstract sense of being anything that's popular or necessary. A staple of the political scene is partisan bickering; a staple of Broadway theater is the musical revival. And let's not forget another meaning — those handy little metal clasps that hold things together. Though most people wouldn't consider a staple a staple.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

staple stapled stapling

After a year in New York City, Dillon Davis and Nichols Neff were fed up with “corporate slop,” the bowl-centric meals that are a staple of sad office lunches.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

They became a staple of the indie scene through the 2000s, and fit in with the broader, decluttered millennial aesthetic that emerged in the 2010s.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026

Indigenous Andean communities were the first to domesticate the starch-rich crop, turning it into a dietary staple long before potatoes spread around the world.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026

Top among them are the United States, where Americans on both coasts enjoy the cocktail hour staple -- but whose interior has yet to be seduced by the spritz.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

The first staple sends shivers over my body, and I’m smiling like a maniac because it’s just cool to blast a staple into wood with a power tool.

From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz

One problem was that her well-organized husband had stapled many invoices and other documents together.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026

A woman who works in the records office hands us three pages stapled together.

From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2025

In contrast, a running joke about the Donald obsessing about his hair has a fun, if gleefully nasty payoff in an episode involving Trump getting his head surgically stapled to impede his male pattern baldness.

From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2024

“Crypto dot com Arena? Staples Center is so stapled to my brain that I can’t call it anything else.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2024

Mom watches him carefully for a while, her eyes half closed and the same partial smile stapled to her face as a disguise.

From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Through a technique known as peptide stapling, the research team modified the B-chain of relaxin-3, replacing blocks of amino acids within them with artificial ones that introduce 'chemical bridges' between them.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 20, 2024

Everybody laughs, including Stewart, who continues stapling until the chair seat's ugliness is snugly disguised.

From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2024

More than a hundred Seattle educators gathered on Labor Day at Judkins Park, stapling and taping signs to wooden pickets in preparation for a potential strike.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 5, 2022

Around the edges of the canvas you can see slight dimples made by the thieves when stapling their cutout canvas over a new stretcher bar.

From New York Times ● May 20, 2022

I will be working in the school office, filing papers, stapling letters, that kind of stuff.

From "The Skin I'm In" by Sharon G. Flake

Related Words

• predominant