stem

• enPR: stĕm, IPA^(key): /stɛm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛm

From Middle English stem, stemme, stempne, stevin, from Old English stemn, stefn (“stem, trunk (of a tree)”), from Proto-Germanic *stamniz.

stem (plural stems)

1. The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     all that are of noble stem

   • (Can we date this quote?) Herbert

     While I do pray, learn here thy stem / And true descent.

2. A branch of a family.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     This is a stem / Of that victorious stock.

3. An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Fuller

     Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.

4. (botany) The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Raleigh

     After they are shot up thirty feet in length, they spread a very large top, having no bough nor twig in the trunk or the stem.

5. A slender supporting member of an individual part of a plant such as a flower or a leaf; also, by analogy, the shaft of a feather.

   the stem of an apple or a cherry

   • 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 206-7:

     Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.

6. A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
7. (linguistics) The main part of an uninflected word to which affixes may be added to form inflections of the word. A stem often has a more fundamental root. Systematic conjugations and declensions derive from their stems.
8. (slang) A person's leg.
   • 2008, Lori Wilde, ‎Rhonda Nelson, ‎Cara Summers, August Harlequin Blaze

     She was perfectly, fuckably proportioned everywhere else, both above and below her waist. A pocket-size Venus, with the longest stems he'd ever seen on someone so dang diminutive.

9. (slang) The penis.
   • 2005, Eric Bogosian, Wasted Beauty (page 135)

     Waves of ecstasy roll through him as the moustachioed Casanova slides his stem in and out of the spaced-out chick.

10. (typography) A vertical stroke of a letter.
11. (music) A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.
12. (nautical) The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
13. Component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork
14. (anatomy) A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
15. (slang) A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
16. (chiefly British) A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism

• (music): tail; virgula (obsolete)

“stem” in the Collins English Dictionary

stem (third-person singular simple present stems, present participle stemming, simple past and past participle stemmed)

1. To remove the stem from.

   to stem cherries; to stem tobacco leaves

2. To be caused or derived; to originate.

   The current crisis stems from the short-sighted politics of the previous government.

3. To descend in a family line.
4. To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.
5. (obsolete) To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:

     As when two warlike Brigandines at sea, / With murdrous weapons arm'd to cruell fight, / Doe meete together on the watry lea, / They stemme ech other with so fell despight, / That with the shocke of their owne heedlesse might, / Their wooden ribs are shaken nigh a sonder […]

6. To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole.

• (to originate, stem from): to be due to, to arise from

From Middle English stemmen, a borrowing from Old Norse stemma (“to stop, stem, dam”) (whence Danish stemme/stæmme (“to stem, dam up”)), from Proto-Germanic *stammijaną. Cognate with German stemmen, Middle Dutch stemmen, stempen. Compare stammer.

stem (third-person singular simple present stems, present participle stemming, simple past and past participle stemmed)

1. (transitive) To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).

   to stem a tide

   • (Can we date this quote?) Denham

     [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope

     Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age.

2. (skiing) To move the feet apart and point the tips of the skis inward in order to slow down the speed or to facilitate a turn.

• See also Thesaurus:hinder

stem (plural stems)

1. Alternative form of steem

Acronym of science, technology, engineering, (and) mathematics.

stem (plural stems)

1. Alternative form of STEM
   • 2015 May 29th, BBC News, How do US black students perform at school?

     Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields are a particular cause for concern because within them there are more pronounced stereotypes, extreme competitiveness and gender inequities regarding the abilities and competencies of black male and female students.

• stem in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• stem in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “stem” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.

• EMTs, Mets, TEMs, mets

From Dutch stem, from Middle Dutch stemme, from Old Dutch *stemma, from Proto-Germanic *stebnō, *stamnijō.

stem (plural stemme)

1. vote
2. voice
   • 1921, C.J. Langenhoven (lyrics), M.L. de Villiers (music), “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika”, South Africa:

     Ruis die stem van ons geliefde, van ons land Suid-Afrika.

     Rises the voice of our beloved, of our country South Africa.

From Dutch stemmen.

stem (present stem, present participle stemmende, past participle gestem)

1. to vote

From Middle Dutch stemme, from Old Dutch *stemma, from Proto-Germanic *stebnō, *stamnijō. Under influence of Latin vox (“voice, word”), it acquired the now obsolete sense of "word".

• IPA^(key): /stɛm/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: stem
• Rhymes: -ɛm

stem f (plural stemmen, diminutive stemmetje n)

1. voice, sound made by the mouth using airflow
2. vote
3. (obsolete) word
4. (phonetics) voice, property formed by vibration of the vocal cords

• foertstem
• proteststem

• Afrikaans: stem
• → Sranan Tongo: sten

stem

1. first-person singular present indicative of stemmen
2. imperative of stemmen

• mest, mets

stem

1. first-person singular present active subjunctive of stō

stem

1. imperative of stemme

stem

1. imperative of stemme

From English stamp.

stem

1. stamp