stem

• enPR: stĕm, IPA^(key): /stɛm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛm

From Middle English stem, stemme, stempne, stevin, from Old English stemn, from Proto-Germanic *stamniz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand, stay”).

stem (plural stems)

1. The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
   • 1634, John Milton, “Arcades”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, OCLC 606951673, page 55:

     Where ye may all that are of noble ſtemm / Approach, and kiſs her ſacred veſtures hemm.

   • 1633, George Herbert, Church Monuments

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

2. A branch of a family.
   • 1599, 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 606515358, [Act II, scene iv]:

     This is a stem / Of that victorious stock.

3. An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, James Nichols, editor, The Church History of Britain, […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), new edition, London: […] [James Nichols] for Thomas Tegg and Son, […], published 1837, OCLC 913056315:

     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.
   • 1736, Sir Walter Raleigh, The History of the World in Five Books

     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.

    Synonyms: tail, (obsolete) virgula

12. (music) A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.
    • 2019, Karl Pedersen; Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard, The Recording, Mixing, and Mastering Reference Handbook, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 268:

      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.

13. (nautical) The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], part 1, 2nd edition, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, OCLC 932920499; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:

      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.

14. (cycling) A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.
15. (anatomy) A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
16. (slang) A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
17. (chiefly Britain) A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.

“stem”, in 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.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 41, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299, page 199:

     Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him.

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

   • 1656, John Denham, The Destruction of Troy:

     [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.

   • 1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W. Lewis […], published 1711, OCLC 15810849:

     Stemm'd 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
• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “stem”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Blend of stud +‎ femme

stem (plural stems)

1. A lesbian, chiefly African-American, exhibiting both stud and femme traits.

   Synonym: futch

• EMTs, Mets, Smet, TEMs, mets

• IPA^(key): /stɛm/

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): /ʃtɛm/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: stem
• Rhymes: -ɛm

stem f (plural stemmen, diminutive stemmetje n)

1. voice, sound made by the mouth using airflow
2. the ability to speak

   Zij is haar stem kwijt. ― She’s lost her voice.

3. vote
4. (obsolete) word
5. (phonetics) voice, property formed by vibration of the vocal cords

• foertstem
• proteststem

• Afrikaans: stem
• Negerhollands: stem
• → Aukan: sitemu
• → Caribbean Javanese: setèm, nyetèm, nyetèmi
• → Indonesian: sêtèm
• → Indonesian: suara (semantic loan)
• → Papiamentu: stèm
• → Sranan Tongo: sten, stèm
  • → Trió: sten

stem

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

• mest, mets

From English stem, from Middle English stem, stemme, stempne, stevin, from Old English stemn, from Proto-Germanic *stamniz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand, stay”).

• IPA^(key): [ˈstem]
• Hyphenation: stém

stem (first-person possessive stemku, second-person possessive stemmu, third-person possessive stemnya)

1. (nautical) stem: the vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.

• “stem” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /stem/, [s̠t̪ɛ̃ˑ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /stem/, [st̪ɛm]

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