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stable

nounverbadjectivecommon in dialogue

  • Canada//ˈsteɪ.bəl//
  • Canada/[ˈsteɪ.bɫ̩]/
  • Australia//ˈstæɪ.bəl//
  • Australia/[ˈstæɪ.bɫ̩]/

A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.

noun

  1. 1

    A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.

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

    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. 2

    All the racehorses of a particular stable, i.e. belonging to a given owner.

  3. 3

    A set of advocates; a barristers' chambers.

  4. 4

    An organization of sumo wrestlers who live and train together.

  5. 5

    A group of wrestlers who support each other within a wrestling storyline.

    Paul, who signed with WWE in late June, appeared in a segment with Reigns' stable, the Bloodline, on Friday's episode of SmackDown after making comments earlier in the week regarding a potential match with the Tribal Chief.

  6. 6

    slangA group of prostitutes managed by one pimp.

    My pimp vision enabled me to see that no hoe in my stable would be more worthy of the game than my young turnout red-bones.

  7. 7

    A group of people who are looked after, mentored, considered or trained in one place or for a particular purpose or profession.

  8. 8

    A coherent or consistent set of things (typically abstract) available or presented; array.

    This Article argues that to date, the Supreme Court has drawn from a narrow stable of arguments to create a fairly standard, yet coarse, analysis to consider when to apply proximate cause to statutes.

    Built into the popular conception of the genius mythos in the sciences is something more than mere intelligence; the solitary free-thinking scientist is also expected to showcase a proclivity for eccentricity, rule breaking, and unconventional thinking and behavior. But when it comes to the abuse of scientific power for sexual predation, this stable of behaviors represents a slippery slope.

Etymology

From Middle English stable, borrowed from Anglo-Norman stable, from Latin stab(u)lum.

verb

  1. 1

    To put or keep (an animal) in a stable.

    It is not difficult for the wealthy brewer or pluralist publican, while he takes his ease in his comfortable dwelling on the Lord’s Day, or rolls in his chariot to the house of prayer, to denounce the agitation in favour of Sunday-closing, while his weary barmen and barmaidens “work from early morn to midnight” to carpet his ample halls and stable his well-fed horses.

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

  2. 2

    To dwell in a stable.

  3. 3

    To park (a rail vehicle).

    S.R. Pacific No. 34010 Sidmouth leaves Wembley Central to stable the stock of its excursion from the S.R. at North Wembley; the train was run in connection with a Wembley football event on April 30, 1960.

    Great Western Railway has placed its Class 143 Pacer fleet into warm storage, with the majority stabled at Exeter.

adjective

  1. 1

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

    He was in a stable relationship.

    His income of £10000 per month was stable for a healthy living.

    a stable government

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

  2. 2

    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. 3

    That maintains the relative order of items that compare as equal.

  4. 4

    Eventually satisfying the identity IM_n=M_n+1.

Etymology

From Middle English stable, from Anglo-Norman stable, stabel, from Latin stabilis (“firm, steadfast”) (itself from stare (“stand”) + -abilis (“able”)). Displaced native Old English staþolfæst.

Forms

plural
stables
comparative
stabler, more stable
superlative
stablest, most stable
past tense
stabled
past participle
stabled
present participle
stabling
third person singular
stables
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).