• enPR: stĕm, IPA: /stɛm/

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-.

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 ↗, 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 (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]:

     This is a stem / Of that victorious stock.

   1. (taxonomy) 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.
3. An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC ↗:

     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

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.
10. (typography) A vertical stroke of a letter.
11. (music) A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.

    Synonyms: tail, virgula

12. (music) A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.
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 […], 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 ↗:

      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, British) A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.

• German: Geschlecht, Stamm, Herkunft
• Italian: ceppo, ramo, linea di discendenza, linea
• Portuguese: ramo
• Russian: род

• German: Zweig, Seitenlinie
• Italian: ceppo, ramo, linea

• Italian: vertice

• French: tige
• German: Stamm, Sprossachse
• Italian: ceppo, fusto, tronco, gambo
• Portuguese: caule
• Russian: ствол
• Spanish: tallo

• French: tige
• German: Stängel, Stiel, Halm, Strunk
• Italian: gambo, picciolo, peduncolo, stelo
• Portuguese: haste
• Russian: черено́к

• German: Stiel, Holm
• Italian: gambo, stelo
• Russian: сте́ржень

• French: racine, radical
• German: Wortstamm, Stamm
• Italian: tema, radice
• Portuguese: radical
• Russian: осно́ва
• Spanish: raíz

• Russian: но́жка

• German: Notenhals
• Italian: asta, gamba

• French: étrave
• German: Vordersteven, Vorsteven, Steven
• Italian: ruota di prua, dritto di prua, tagliamare
• Portuguese: talha-mar
• Russian: нос
• Spanish: roda

• French: potence
• German: Vorbau

stem (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 13, Herman Melville, chapter 41, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC ↗, 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

• French: équeuter
• German: entstielen
• Russian: отделя́ть

• French: résulter, découler
• German: kommen, herrühren, sich begründen auf, seine Ursache haben in, verursacht werden
• Italian: derivare
• Portuguese: derivar, originar
• Russian: происходи́ть
• Spanish: arrancar, venir, proceder, dimanar (formal)

• French: provenir
• German: stammen, abstammen, herstammen
• Italian: discendere
• Portuguese: descender
• Russian: происходи́ть
• Spanish: descender

From Middle English stemmen, a borrowing from Old Norse stemma (whence Danish stemme/stæmme ("to stem, dam up")), from Proto-Germanic *stammijaną.

stem (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

   • 1636 (date written), John Denham, “The Destruction of Troy, an Essay upon the Second Book of Virgils Æneis”, in Poems and Translations, with The Sophy, 4th edition, London: […] [John Macock] for H[enry] Herringman […], published 1668, →OCLC ↗:

     [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.

   • 1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC ↗:

     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.
3. In rock climbing, to use a stance with the feet spread apart, bracing them in opposite directions against the two walls of a chimney or dihedral.

• See also Thesaurus:hinder

• French: arrêter
• German: aufhalten, hemmen, entgegenstemmen, eindämmen, stillen, gegen etwas ankämpfen
• Italian: arrestare, tamponare
• Portuguese: parar
• Russian: проти́виться

• French: faire le chasse-neige
• German: im Schneepflug fahren, ausstemmen
• Russian: тормозить плугом

stem (plural stems)

1. Alternative form of steem

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

stem (plural stems)

1. Alternative form of STEM

stem (plural stems)

stem

1. (countable) Acronym of scanning transmission electron microscope
2. (uncountable) Acronym of science, technology, engineering, (and) mathematics
   • 2012 March 22nd, David Blockley, Engineering: A Very Short Introduction (309), Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199578696, chapter 1: “From idea to reality”, page 14:

     Although these six classifications of the scope and responsibility and specific engineering expertise are interesting and useful, they come from within engineering itself and they don’t help us to disentangle STEM.

• STEAM science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics
• STEMM science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine

• French: STIM
• German: MINT
• Spanish: CTIM

1. Surname.