Idioms

go to the stake

go to the stake

To be willing to do anything in defense of one's beliefs. These protests are dangerous—are you really ready to go to the stake for your beliefs? How many innocent women had to go to the stake because powerful men found them guilty of witchcraft? I knew that only a select few from our movement would be willing to go to the stake.
See also: go, stake, to
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

go to the stake

mainly BRITISH, OLD-FASHIONED
If you say that you would go to the stake to defend a principle or aim, you mean that you believe in it completely and would do anything to prove it. It's certainly not a cause that I would go to the stake for. Note: A stake is a wooden post. In the past, people were sometimes tied to a stake and burned alive for refusing to give up beliefs which the church considered heretical and wrong.
See also: go, stake, to
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
See also:
References in classic literature
There was a sort of patient, humorous endurance in his expression which indicated that he would go to the stake if need be, but would keep on looking pleasant until he really had to begin squirming.
Here this man will go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it
"I would go to the stake in my belief that the Prime Minister is committed totally to this package," he said.
Swan Hunter doesn't have to go to the stake over this disappointment; Kroese believes it can recover and continue to retain a significant workforce.
"There are many Liberals who would rather go to the stake than be seen as the playthings of the Labour Party.
But Cauchon was in league with the English; he burned the letter, and later told Joan that the Pope said that her voices were from the devil and not God, so that she would have to go to the stake. Before her execution she was denied confession and communion and her crucifix was taken away from her; Cauchon said that witches were not allowed crucifixes.
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