stake a claim

stake a claim

To assert one's ownership of or right to something. My great-grandfather staked a claim to this land. You can't have this cookie because someone else already staked a claim to it.

See also: claim, stake

stake a claim

Also, stake out a claim. Indicate something as one's own, as in I'm staking a claim to the drumstick, or She staked out a claim for herself in the insurance business. This term, dating from the mid-1800s, originally meant "register a claim to land by marking it with stakes." It was being used figuratively by the late 1800s.

See also: claim, stake

stake a claim

declare your right to something.

This expression refers to the practice of putting stakes around the perimeter of a piece of land to which a claim is laid. It is American in origin, dating from the California gold rush of 1849 , when the prospectors registered their claims to individual plots of land in this way.

See also: claim, stake