stem
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: stĕm
ipa: /stɛm/
rhymes: -ɛm
Forms: form: stems
Etymology: From Middle English stem, stemme, stempne, stevin, from Old English stemn, from Proto-West Germanic *stamni, from Proto-Germanic *stamniz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand, stay”).
Senses: examples: text: Where ye may all that are of noble ſtemm / Approach, and kiſs her ſacred veſtures hemm.
ref: 1634, John Milton, “Arcades”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 55:
text: While I do pray, learn here thy stem / And true descent.
ref: 1633, George Herbert, Church Monuments:
glosses: The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
examples: text: This is a stem / Of that victorious stock.
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:
glosses: A branch of a family.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
taxonomy
glosses: A branch of a family.
A branch, or group of branches, located outside a family or other cladistic group, but which is more closely related to that group than to any other taxon of the same rank.
examples: text: Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.
ref: 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
glosses: An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1736, Sir Walter Raleigh, The History of the World in Five Books:
text: He had placed her upon the grass by now, her back resting against the stem of a huge tree. At her question he stepped back where he could the better see her face.
ref: 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 212:
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms.
examples: text: the stem of an apple or a cherry
text: 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.
ref: 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7:
glosses: 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.
glosses: A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
examples: text: The praenomen and nomen for the most part consisted of simple stems with the suffix -us or -ius, which correspond to some of the contracted forms in other languages […].
ref: 1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xiv:
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2008, Lori Wilde, Rhonda Nelson, Cara Summers, August Harlequin Blaze:
glosses: A person's leg.
examples: text: Waves of ecstasy roll through him as the moustachioed Casanova slides his stem in and out of the spaced-out chick.
ref: 2005, Eric Bogosian, Wasted Beauty, page 135:
glosses: The penis.
topics: media
publishing
typography
glosses: A vertical stroke of a letter.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
synonyms: word: tail
word: virgula
glosses: A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.
examples: text: Stem mastering processes a mix by breaking it down into several manageable pieces—that is, stereo stems. The stem approach allows the mastering engineer the opportunity to make larger or smaller changes to separate mix elements before the final compression and limiting are applied to the complete mix.
ref: 2019, Karl Pedersen, Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard, The Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Reference Handbook, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 268:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.
topics: nautical
transport
qualifier: precisely
glosses: The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
examples: text: from stem to stern
text: Both we will walke vpon the loftie cliffes,
And Chriſtian Merchants that with Ruſſian ſtems
Plow vp huge furrowes in the Caſpian ſea,
Shall vaile to vs, as Lords of al the Lake.
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:
topics: nautical
transport
synonyms: bow
stem
fore
forestem
prow
beak
prore
antonyms: stern
aft
poop
glosses: The front part of a vessel.
topics: cycling
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
glosses: A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
glosses: A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
glosses: A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.
Derived terms: a-stem
bestem
bluestem
brain stem
brittlestem
celestial stem
consonant stem
destem
stem to stern
give the stem
heavenly stem
i-stem
Mach stem
macrostem
mainstem
multistem
nonstem
oblique stem
o-stem
pipestem
pseudostem
question stem
redstem
restem
ringstem
screwstem
softstem bulrush
stem and leaf
stem-and-leaf
stembark
stem borer
stem cell
stem-changing verb
stem-clasping
stem duchy
stem family
stemflow
stem for stem
stem ginger
stem group
stemhead
stemless
stemlet
stemlike
stemline
stem-loop
stem mammal
stemmer
stemmery
stemmy
stemness
stem node
stemplot
stempost
stem siren
stem stitch
stem the rose
stem the tide
stemward
stemwards
stemware
stem-winder
stemwinder
straw stem
substem
tenderstem
the apple does not fall far from the stem
unstemmable
unstemmed
u-stem
vinestem
wire stem
wirestem