Stall

The stall — the place where a fattened animal is kept and fed — appears in a proverb that weighs plain food with affection against rich food with strife.

A Stalled Ox

The proverb's contrast pits a vegetable meal in a loving home against the choicest beef in a hostile one: "Better is a dinner of herbs, where there is love, / Than a stalled ox and hatred with it" (Pr 15:17). The "stalled ox" is the deliberately fattened animal of the well-stocked household, set up here as the lavish but worthless alternative when relationship has gone sour.