To break something into pieces, or to hold off or delay something unwanted (like staving off hunger or disease).
From Old English 'stæf' meaning 'staff' or 'stick.' A stave is a wooden plank in a barrel, and the verb originally meant to break those planks apart; it evolved to mean breaking things generally, then metaphorically to mean warding off.
A barrel is held together by staves, so when you 'stave in' a barrel, you literally break the wooden slats—but now we use it to mean preventing disaster, like staving off a zombie apocalypse by boarding up the door!
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