From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishstave something ↔ in phrasal verb (past tense and past participle staved or stove /stəʊv $ stoʊv/)BREAKto break something inwards The ship’s side was stove in when it went onto the rocks. → stave→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
stave in• This was originally a stave church.• We landed hard and the wood beneath our feet just flew apart, shattering into staves.• His acolytes wore head-dresses of these feathers and carried gold staves and shields in temple processions. 