# stele
## English
### Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “upright rock; pillar; column”), plural form στῆλαι (stêlai). Doublet of stela.

#### Alternative forms

* stélé, stelè

#### Pronunciation

* (modern) IPA: /ˈstiːli/; (formerly also) IPA: /stiːl/
* Audio (US); /ˈstiːli/:(file)
* Homophones: steelie, steely
* Rhymes: -iːli

#### Noun

stele (plural steles or stelai)
* (archaeology) An upright (or formerly upright) slab containing engraved or painted decorations or inscriptions; a stela.
** 1820, T. S. Hughes, Trav. Sicily, I x 303:A superior class of members...had their names inscribed upon a marble stélé or column.
** 1825, T. D. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq., I v 70:It appears, that when any one of the family died, a stelè to his memory was added to the tomb.
** 1847, C. O. Müller, translated by J. Leitch, Anc. Art, §224 193:In Egypt [obelisks] belonged to the class of steles (commemorative pillars).
** 1884, A. Lang, Custom & Myth, section 285:The Australian stele, or grave-pillar.
* (archaeology, uncommon) Any carved or engraved surface.
** 1877, A. B. Edwards, Thousand Miles up Nile, VI 143:Two large hieroglyphed steles incised upon the face of a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff.
* (architecture, archaeology, obsolete) An acroterion, the decoration on the ridge of an ancient Greek building such as a temple.
** c. 1840, Hosking, "Architecture" in Encyclopædia Britannica, III 470:
    Stele. The ornaments on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to the antefixæ on the summit of the flank entablatures, are thus designated.

##### Usage notes

* Although stela and stele were used in antiquity for pillars and columns generally, and continued to carry that meaning when their use was revived in English archaeology and architecture in the 18th and 19th century, respectively, present usage usually distinguishes obelisks, columns, shafts (the body of a column between the capital and the pediment), etc., from stela and stele, which are used to refer to engraved slabs or small pillars.
* Furthermore, although the terms still refer to small pillarlike gravestones from antiquity, the similar-looking herms are now often distinguished, as are modern gravestones, monuments, boundary markers, etc.
* The terms do sometimes refer to undecorated rocks when they have been raised by artificial means in prehistoric times, particularly when they are slab-like, but the large Neolithic menhirs are usually distinguished as are Chinese scholar's rocks or Taihu rocks, and other modern uses of upright stones as decoration or signage.
* Stele is frequently pluralized irregularly as stelae, which is also used as a plural form of the more Latinized singular form stela. The anglicized Greek plural stelai has been used since the late 19th century but is less common than steles.

##### Synonyms

* stela

##### Translations

Arabic: لَوْحَة تِذْكَارِيَّة f (lawḥa tiḏkāriyya)
Armenian: ստելա (hy) (stela)
Basque: estela (eu)
Belarusian: стэла f (stela)
Breton: maen-koun m
Bulgarian: стела f (stela)
Burmese: ကျောက်စာ (my) (kyaukca)
Catalan: estela (ca) f
Chinese:
Cantonese: 石碑 (sek$^6$ bei$^1$), 碑 (yue) (bei$^1$)
Eastern Min: 碑 (bĭ)
Hakka: 石碑 (sa̍k-pî), 碑 (pî)
Hokkien: 石碑 (chio̍h-pi), 碑 (pi)
Mandarin: 石碑 (zh) (shíbēi), 碑 (zh) (bēi)
Northern Min: 碑 (bí)
Czech: stéla (cs) f
Danish: stele c
Dutch: stele (nl) f
Egyptian: (ꜥḥꜥ)
Esperanto: steleo
Estonian: steel (et)
Finnish: steele (fi)
French: stèle (fr) f
Georgian: სტელა (ka) (sṭela)
German: Stele (de) f
Greek: στήλη (el) f (stíli)
Hebrew: אַסְטֶלָה (he) f (astela)
Hungarian: sztélé (hu)
Ido: steleo (io)
Indonesian: prasasti (id)
Irish: liagán greanta m
Italian: stele (it) f
Japanese: 石碑 (ja) (せきひ, sekihi), 碑 (ja) (いしぶみ, ishibumi)
Javanese: prasasti
Korean: 석비 (seokbi)
Latin: stela f
Latvian: stēla f
Lithuanian: stela (lt) f
Macedonian: стела f (stela)
Malayalam: ശിലാഫലകം (śilāphalakaṁ)
Minangkabau: batu basurek, prasasti
Norwegian:
Bokmål: stele m
Nynorsk: stele m
Persian: سنگ یادبود (sang yâdbud)
Polish: stela (pl) f
Portuguese: estela (pt) f
Romanian: stelă (ro) f
Russian: сте́ла (ru) f (stɛ́la)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: сте̏ла f
Roman: stȅla (sh) f
Slovak: stéla f
Slovene: stela (sl) f
Sorbian:
Lower Sorbian: stela f
Upper Sorbian: stela f
Spanish: estela (es) f
Sundanese: prasasti
Swedish: stele (sv) c
Tamil: சிற்பத்தூண் (ciṟpattūṇ)
Telugu: స్టీలే (sṭīlē)
Thai: ศิลาจารึก (sì-laa jaa-réuk)
Turkish: stel (tr), stela
Ugaritic: 𐎒𐎋𐎐 (skn)
Ukrainian: сте́ла f (stéla)
Vietnamese: bia (vi)
Waray-Waray: estela :

### Etymology 2

From 1886 French stèle, from Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “upright rock; pillar; column”).

#### Noun

stele (plural steles)
* (botany) The central core of a plant's root and stem system, especially including the vascular tissue and developed from the plerome.
** 1895, Sydney Howard Vines, A Students' Text-book of Botany, section 179:The stele may have—in different structures—one to many protoxylem (primitive wood) groups, and is accordingly described as monarch...diarch...triarch...tetrarch...polyarch.
** 1898, Eduard Strasburger et al., translated by Hobart Charles Porter, A Text-book of Botany, section 109:The so-called central cylinder, for which Van Tieghem has proposed the name stele (column).

##### Derived terms

* actinostele
* atactostele
* dictyostele
* eustele
* haplostele
* plectostele
* protostele
* siphonostele
* solenostele

##### Translations
### References

* ↑ Oxford English Dictionary. "Stele".

### Anagrams

* Teles, leets, Steel, Leets, Teels, teles, Elets, steel, sleet

## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Verb

stele
* (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of stelen

### Anagrams

* leest, sleet, slete, steel

## Friulian
### Etymology

From Latin stēlla.

### Noun

stele f (plural stelis)
* star

## Indonesian
### Etymology

From English stele, from 1886 French stèle, from Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “upright rock; pillar; column”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ˈstele]
* Hyphenation: sté‧lé

### Noun

stele or stélé
* (botany) stele, the central core of a plant's root and stem system, especially including the vascular tissue and developed from the plerome.

### Further reading

* “stele” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

## Istro-Romanian
### Noun

stele f (plural form of ste)
* stars

## Italian
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈstɛ.le/
* Rhymes: -ɛle
* Hyphenation: stè‧le

### Noun

stele f (invariable)
* stele (all senses)

#### See also

* pilastro
* erma
* pilastrino
* cippo
* busto

### Anagrams

* leste

## Middle English
### Etymology 1

From Old English stēle, stȳle, stīele, from Proto-West Germanic *stahlī (“steel weapon”).

#### Alternative forms

* stel, stelle, steole, steyle, stiele, style

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈsteːl(ə)/

#### Noun

stele (plural steles)
* steel

##### Descendants

* English: steel
** → Maori: tīra
* Scots: stele, steill
* Yola: stheel

#### References

* “stẹ̄̆l(e, n.(3).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

### Etymology 2

Inherited from Old English stela, steola; a parallel etymology to English stale (“a handle, shaft, stem”, noun).

#### Alternative forms

* stel, stell, stile

#### Noun

stele (plural steles or stelen)
* A stem or trunk of a plant.
* A ladder's side or half.
** c. 1225, “Seſte dale: penitence”, in Ancrene Ƿiſſe (MS. Corpus Christi 402)‎, Herefordshire, published c. 1235, folio 96, recto; republished at Cambridge: Parker Library on the Web, 2018 January:ſcheome ⁊ pine · aſ ſein Beornard ſeið beoð þe tƿa leaddꝛe steolen þe beoð up rriht to heouene […]As Saint Bernard says, shame and penury are the two sides of the ladder that go right up to heaven.
* A handle or shaft.
** 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wyfe of Bathes Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:And in o purpose stedfastly to dwel / And nat bewray thyng that men vs tel / But that tale is nat worthe a rake stele / Parde we women con nothyng hele(please add an English translation of this quotation)

##### Descendants

* Yola: sthill, stell

#### References

* “stēle, n.$^1$”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

### Etymology 3
#### Verb

stele
* Alternative form of stelen

## Norwegian Bokmål
### Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “pillar”).

#### Noun

stele m (definite singular stelen, indefinite plural steler, definite plural stelene)
* (archaeology) A tall, slender stone monument, often with writing carved into its surface

### Etymology 2

From Old Norse stela, from Proto-Germanic *stelaną.

#### Verb

stele (present tense steler, past tense stal, supine stålet)
* form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by stjele

### References

* “stele” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

### Anagrams

* eltes, eslet, etles, leste, letes, selet, selte, -elset

## Norwegian Nynorsk
### Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “pillar”).

#### Noun

stele m (definite singular stelen, indefinite plural stelar, definite plural stelane)
* (archaeology) tall, slender stone monument, often with writing carved into its surface

### Etymology 2
#### Verb

stele (present tense stel, past tense stal, past participle stole, passive infinitive stelast, present participle stelande, imperative stel)
* Alternative form of stela

### References

* “stele” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

## Old English
### Noun

stēle m
* Alternative form of stīele

### Verb

stele
* first-person singular present indicative of stelan

## Romanian
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈste.le/
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -ele
* Hyphenation: ste‧le

### Noun

stele f
* inflection of stea:
** indefinite nominative/accusative plural
** indefinite genitive/dative singular/plural

## Swedish
### Adjective

stele
* definite natural masculine singular of stel

### References
## Venetan
### Noun

stele
* plural of stela