adj

• (alcoholic beverages, obsolete) Clear, free of dregs and lees; old and strong.
  "The stronger Beere is divided into two parts (viz.) mild and stale; the first may ease a man of a drought, but the later is like water cast into a Smiths forge, and breeds more heartburning, and as rust eates into Iron, so overstale Beere gnawes auletholes in the entrales, or else my skill failes, and what I have written of it is to be held as a jest."
• (obsolete) No longer nubile or suitable for marriage, in reference to people; past one's prime.
  "Rosimunda...hathe an vncle a stale batcheler."
• (in general) Not new or recent; having been in place or in effect for some time.
  "In most states, you can be ticketed for failing to clear the intersection, even if you are hemmed in by traffic. One good clue to a stale green light is the pedestrian signal."
• (agriculture, obsolete) Fallow, in reference to land.
  "Lime would do very little or no good on stale ploughed lands."

noun

• (colloquial) Something stale; a loaf of bread or the like that is no longer fresh.
  "I went to Riggs's batty-cake shop, and asked 'em for a penneth of the cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not quite."

verb

• (of alcohol, obsolete, transitive) To make stale; to age in order to clear and strengthen (a drink, especially beer).
  "Stalyn, or make stale drynke, defeco."
• (transitive) To make stale; to cause to go out of fashion or currency; to diminish the novelty or interest of, particularly by excessive exposure or consumption.
  "Ile goe tell all the Argument of his Play aforehand, and so stale his Inuention to the Auditory before it come foorth."
• (intransitive) To become stale; to grow odious from excessive exposure or consumption.
  "They have got so much of Christ as to be staled of his company."
• (alcoholic beverages, intransitive) To become stale; to grow unpleasant from age.
  "The Drink from that Time flattens and stales."

noun

• (dialectal) One of the posts or uprights of a ladder.
  "Stales, the staves, or risings of a ladder, or the staves of a rack in a stable."
• (botany, obsolete) The stem of a plant.