stem

Plural: stems

Noun

• (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed
  • "thematic vowels are part of the stem"
• a slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ
• cylinder forming a long narrow part of something
• the tube of a tobacco pipe
• front part of a vessel or aircraft
• a turn made in skiing; the back of one ski is forced outward and the other ski is brought parallel to it
• The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
• A branch of a family.
• 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.
• An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
• The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms.
• 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.
• A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
• 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.
• A person's leg.
• The penis.
• A vertical stroke of a letter.
• A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.
• A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.
• The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
• The front part of a vessel.
• A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.
• A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
• A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
• A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.
• Alternative form of steem.
• Alternative form of STEM.
• Alternative spelling of stemme (“lesbian who combines stud and femme traits”).

Verb

Verb Forms: stemmed, stemming, stems

• To remove the stem from a fruit or vegetable, or to stop something.
• grow out of, have roots in, originate in
  • "The increase in the national debt stems from the last war"
• cause to point inward
  • "stem your skis"
• stop the flow of a liquid
  • "stem the tide"
• remove the stem from
  • "for automatic natural language processing, the words must be stemmed"
• To remove the stem from.
• To be caused or derived; to originate.
• To descend in a family line.
• To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.
• To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.
• To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole.
• To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).
• 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.
• 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.

Examples

• from stem to stern
• He managed to stem the flow of his opponent’s points by blocking a key line.
• The current crisis stems from the short-sighted politics of the previous government.
• the stem of an apple or a cherry
• to stem cherries; to stem tobacco leaves

Synonyms

base, bow, fore, halt, prow, radical, root, root word, shank, stalk, stanch, staunch, stem turn, theme, beak, forestem, prore, stem, tail, to arise from, to be due to, virgula

Antonyms

aft, poop, stern

Anagrams of stem