• (RP) enPR: stäf, IPA: /stɑːf/
• (North America, Northern England) IPA: /ˈstæf/

staff

1. (plural staffs or staves) A long, straight, thick wooden rod or stick, especially one used to assist in walking.
2. (music, plural staves) A series of horizontal lines on which musical notes are written; a stave.
3. (plural staff or staffs) The employees of a business.

   The company employed 10 new members of staff this month.

4. (uncountable) A mixture of plaster and fibre used as a temporary exterior wall covering.^W
5. A pole, stick, or wand borne as an ensign of authority; a badge of office.

   a constable's staff

   • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Methought this staff, mine office badge in court, / Was broke in twain.

   • All his officers brake their staves; but at their return new staves were delivered unto them.

6. A pole upon which a flag is supported and displayed.
7. (archaic) The rung of a ladder.
   • , E. Brown's Travels

     I ascend at one [ladder] of six hundred and thirty-nine staves.

8. A series of verses so disposed that, when it is concluded, the same order begins again; a stanza; a stave.

   • Cowley found out that no kind of staff is proper for an heroic poem, as being all too lyrical.

9. (engineering) An arbor, as of a wheel or a pinion of a watch.
10. (surgery) The grooved director for the gorget, or knife, used in cutting for stone in the bladder.
11. (military) An establishment of officers in various departments attached to an army, to a section of an army, or to the commander of an army. The general's staff consists of those officers about his person who are employed in carrying his commands into execution.

• (piece of wood) See Thesaurus:stick
• (music) stave
• (employees) personnel

• French: bâton, canne
• German: Stab
• Italian: bastone, asta
• Portuguese: cajado
• Russian: по́сох
• Spanish: bastón, báculo

• French: portée
• German: Notenlinien
• Italian: pentagramma, rigo
• Portuguese: pauta
• Russian: но́тный стан
• Spanish: varas, pauta, pentagrama

• French: personnel
• German: Belegschaft, Personal, Stab, Mitarbeiter
• Italian: personale, organico
• Portuguese: pessoal, equipe
• Russian: персона́л
• Spanish: personal, equipo, empleado, plantilla, plantel

• German: Stab

staff (staffs, present participle staffing; past and past participle staffed)

1. (transitive) To supply (a business, volunteer organization, etc.) with employees or staff members.

1. Misspelling of staph