Stem
WordNet
noun
(1) A turn made in skiing; the back of one ski is forced outward and the other ski is brought parallel to it
(2) Front part of a vessel or aircraft
"He pointed the bow of the boat toward the finish line"
(3) Cylinder forming a long narrow part of something
(4) The tube of a tobacco pipe
(5) (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed
"Thematic vowels are part of the stem"
(6) A slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ
verb
(7) Remove the stem from
"For automatic natural language processing, the words must be stemmed"
(8) Stop the flow of a liquid
"Staunch the blood flow"
"Them the tide"
(9) Grow out of, have roots in, originate in
"The increase in the national debt stems from the last war"
(10) Cause to point inward
"Stem your skis"
WiktionaryText
Etymology 1
, , from .
Noun
- 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 analogue 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 endings may be added to form inflections of the word.
- A vertical stroke of a letter.
- A vertical stroke of a symbol representing a note in written music.
- The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
Etymology 2
< < ( > Danish /), cognate with German ; see stammer.
Verb
- To descend in a family line.
- To be caused or derived; to originate.
- The current crisis stems from the short-sighted politics of the previous government.
- To take out the stem from something.
- To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).
- stem a tide
- 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.
Verb
stem