Stave is an old term for a stanza, especially in poetry that uses repeated groups of lines. It appears most often in older or more formal writing, and today stanza is the usual word.
In some poems, staves help organize the movement of thought by separating ideas into distinct sections, much like paragraphs in prose.
Example
The winter wind kept watch outside,
Each window silver-blue and dim;
We crossed the room and closed the door,
Then spoke our evening lullaby.
The next stave opened warm and slow,
With lamplight breathing through the dark.
Related Definitions
[n] a crosspiece between the legs of a chair
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[n] (music) the system of five horizontal lines on which the musical notes are written
[v] burst or force (a hole) into something