stalk
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: stôk
ipa: /stɔːk/
enpr: stôk
ipa: /stɔk/
ipa: /stɑk/
homophone: stork (non-rhotic)
homophone: stock (cot–caught merger)
rhymes: -ɔːk
Forms: form: stalks
Etymology: From Middle English stalke, stelke, stalk, perhaps from Old English *stealc, *stielc, *stealuc, from Proto-West Germanic *staluk, *stalik, from Proto-Germanic *stalukaz, *stalikaz, diminutive of Proto-Germanic *stalô, *staluz (“support, stem, stalk”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place, stand; be stiff; stud, post, trunk, stake, stem, stalk”).
Cognates
Cognate with Dutch staal (“sample”), steel (“stem”), German Stiel (“stalk”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål stilk (“stalk, stem”), Faroese stjølur (“bottom part of a sheaf”), Icelandic stilkur (“stalk, stem”), Norwegian Nynorsk stilk, stylk (“stalk, stem”), styl (“lower part of a straw”), Swedish stjälk (“stalk, stem”), Albanian shtalkë (“crossbeam, board used as a door hinge”), Welsh telm (“frond”), Ancient Greek στειλειή (steileiḗ, “beam”), Old Armenian ստեղն (stełn, “trunk, stalk”).
Senses: examples: text: a stalk of wheat, rye, or oats;  the stalks of maize or hemp
text: Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
ref: 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy), pages 377–378:
glosses: The stem or main axis of a plant.
examples: text: grape stalks
synonyms: footstalk
glosses: The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
examples: text: they appear to be made up of little Bladders , like those in the Plume or Stalk of a Quill
ref: 1681, Nehemiah Grew, Musæum Regalis Societatis. Or A Catalogue & Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities Belonging to the Royal Society and Preserved at Gresham Colledge. […], London: […] W. Rawlins, for the author, →OCLC:
glosses: Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
topics: architecture
glosses: An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
glosses: One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
zoology
glosses: A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
zoology
glosses: The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
zoology
glosses: The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
topics: arts
crafts
engineering
hobbies
lifestyle
metallurgy
metalworking
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
topics: mathematics
sciences
qualifier: sheaf theory
glosses: Informally, a construction which generalizes that of the notion of the ring of germs of functions near a point to the context of arbitrary sheaves. Formally, given a sheaf ℱ on a space X, and a point x in X, the direct limit of the sections of F on the open neighborhoods of x ordered by reverse inclusion. See Stalk (sheaf) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
glosses: The penis.
Derived terms: chimney stalk
e-stalk
footstalk
Google stalk
gout stalk
jade stalk
laughing stalk
rose twisted-stalk
stalk-eyed
stalk-eyed fly
twisted-stalk