Language Of Confusion: Stalled, Part I

There’s a weird number of words related to this one that you wouldn’t think. All are descended from the Proto Indo European root stel-, to stand or to put in order, two meanings you wouldn’t think actually go together but it does kind of make sense.
 
Stall is one of those words with a lot of different definitions, like a physical stall where you sell goods, or stalling someone, an engine getting stalled, and somehow they are all from the same word. The first one to show up was a stall like you would put animals, sometime before something stalling out, which showed up in the mid fifteenth century. It comes from the Middle English stalle, from the Old English steall, a standing place to catch fish. That’s from the Proto Germanic stalli-, which is thought to be from stel-, so a standing place to catch fish became a stall, and that changed into all those other definitions.
 
Plus there are other words related to stall. Did you know stallion is from stall? It showed up in the mid fifteenth century, though it also showed up earlier as staloun, coming from: the Anglo French estaloun, Old French estalon, Frankish stal, Old High German stal (which means stable), and Proto Germanic stol-. And that’s from stel-. Funny how stallions go in stalls, but the words have diverging etymologies. As for install, which you would think would be related, there’s no real evidence of it. Install is Latin in origin, and while Latin might have taken it from a Germanic language, there’s no clear word it came from, including stall’s origin words. I mean, it makes sense and it probably is related, but maybe not???
 
Back to words that are definitely from stel-. Still comes from the Old English stille, which just means still, so no big WTF leaps. That’s from the Proto Germanic stilli-, from the PIE stel-ni-, which is a form of stel-. Straight to the point there.
 
Then there’s stale. Makes sense, stale things stand for too long. It showed up in the fourteenth century meaning… alcohol that stood long enough that it’s now free from dregs. It didn’t mean something old until the mid sixteenth century! And of course it was Shakespeare who started it to mean something that’s gone stale by being laid out for too long. Stale actually comes from the Old French estale, settled or clear, from estal, a fixed position, form the Frankish stal-, Proto Germanic stol-, and so from stel-. If it wasn’t for Shakespeare immortalizing the slang of the time, stale would only have to do with alcohol clearing up! How does this word make less sense now?
 
Finally today, stalk. Like the stalk of a plant, not stalking after someone (that’s thought to be related to steal). A plant stalk showed up in the early fourteenth century, and that’s thought to be from the Middle English stale (I don’t think that’s even related to stale!), and before that the Old English stalu, the wooden part of a tool. It’s from the Proto Germanic stalla-, which is from the PIE stol-no-, from stel-. I really can’t see that one, but somehow it’s supposed to be true.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
University of Texas at Arlington
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University