stem

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The main ascending axis of a plant; a stalk or trunk.
2. n. A slender stalk supporting or connecting another plant part, such as a leaf or flower.
3. n. A banana stalk bearing several bunches of bananas.
4. n. A connecting or supporting part, especially:
5. n. The tube of a tobacco pipe.
6. n. The slender upright support of a wineglass or goblet.
7. n. The small projecting shaft with an expanded crown by which a watch is wound.
8. n. The rounded rod in the center of certain locks about which the key fits and is turned.
9. n. The shaft of a feather or hair.
10. n. The upright stroke of a typeface or letter.
11. n. Music The vertical line extending from the head of a note.
12. n. The main line of descent of a family.
13. n. Linguistics The main part of a word to which affixes are added.
14. n. Nautical The curved upright beam at the fore of a vessel into which the hull timbers are scarfed to form the prow.
15. n. The tubular glass structure mounting the filament or electrodes in an incandescent bulb or vacuum tube.
16. v. To have or take origin or descent.
17. v. To remove the stem of.
18. v. To provide with a stem.
19. v. To make headway against: managed to stem the rebellion.
20. idiom. from stem to stern From one end to another.
21. v. To stop or hold back by or as if by damming; stanch.
22. v. To plug or tamp (a blast hole, for example).
23. v. Sports To point (skis) inward.
24. v. Sports To point skis inward in order to slow down or turn.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The body of a tree, shrub, or plant; the firm part which supports the branches; the stock; the stalk; technically, the ascending axis, which ordinarily grows in an opposite direction to the root or descending axis. The stem is composed of fibrous, spiral, and cellular tissues, arranged in various ways; it typically assumes a cylindrical form and a perpendicular position, and bears upon it the remaining aèrial parts of the plant. Its form and direction, however, are subject to much variation in particular cases. In regard to internal structure, there are three principal modifications of stems characteristic of three of the great natural classes into which the vegetable kingdom is divided—namely, exogens, endogens, and acrogens. Stems are herbaceous or woody, solid or hollow, jointed or unjointed, branched or simple. Sometimes they are so weak as to be procumbent, although more generally firm and erect; sometimes weak stems are upheld by twining or by other methods of climbing. In some plants the stem is so short as to seem to be wanting, the leaves and flower-stalks appearing to spring from the top of the root. There are also stems, such as the rhizome and tuber, which, being subterranean, have been mistaken for roots. See cuts under baobab, esparto, internode, pipsissewa, snakeroot, rhizome, and tuber.
2. n. The stalk which supports the flower or the fruit of a plant; the peduncle of the fructification, or the pedicel of a flower; the petiole or leaf-stem. See cuts under pedicel, peduncle, and petiole.
3. n. The stock of a family; a race; ancestry.
4. n. A branch of a family; an offshoot.
5. n. Anything resembling the stem of a plant. Specifically— The handle of a tool. Halliwell.
6. n. In type-founding, the thick stroke or body-mark of a roman or italic letter. See cut under type.
7. n. In a vehicle, a bar to which the bow of a falling hood is hinged.
8. n. The projecting rod of a reciprocating valve, serving to guide it in its action. See cut under slide-valve.
9. n. In zoology and anatomy, any slender, especially axial, part like the stem of a plant; a stalk, stipe, rachis, footstalk, etc.
10. n. In ornithology, the whole shaft of a feather.
11. n. In entomology, the base of a clavate antenna, including all the joints except the enlarged outer ones: used especially in descriptions of the Lepidoptera.
12. n. In musical notation, a vertical line added to the head of certain kinds of notes. Of the kinds of note now in use, all but two, the breve and the semibreve, have stems. It may be directed either upward or downward, thus, . When two voice-parts are written on the same staff, the stems of the notes belonging to the upper part are often directed upward, and those of the lower part downward, particularly when the parts cross, or both use the same note (see figure). The latter note is said to have a double stem. See note, 13. Also called tail.
13. n. In philology, a derivative from a root, having itself inflected forms, whether of declension or of conjugation, made from it; the unchanged part in a series of inflectional forms, from which the forms are viewed as made by additions; base; crude form.
14. n. See the adjectives.
15. To remove the stem of; separate from the stem: as, to stem tobacco.
16. n. A curved piece of timber or metal to which the two sides of a ship are united at the foremost end. The lower end of it is scarfed or riveted to the keel, and the bowsprit, when present, rests on its upper end. In wooden ships it is frequently called the main stem, to distinguish it from the false stem, or cutwater. The outside of the stem is usually marked with a scale showing the perpendicular height from the keel, for indicating the draft of water forward. See also cut under forecastle.
17. n. The forward part of a vessel; the bow.
18. To dash against with the stem (of a vessel).
19. To keep (a vessel) on its course; steer.
20. To make headway against by sailing or swimming, as a tide or current; hence, in general, to make headway against (opposition of any kind).
21. To make headway (as a ship); especially, to make progress in opposition to some obstruction, as a current of water or the wind.
22. To head; advance head on.
23. To stop; check; dam up, as a stream.
24. To tamp; make tight, as a joint, with a lute or cement.
25. An old spelling of steam.

Wiktionary

1. n. 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.
2. n. 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.
3. n. A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
4. n. 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.
5. n. typography A vertical stroke of a letter.
6. n. music A vertical stroke of a symbol representing a note in written music.
7. n. nautical The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
8. v. To take out the stem from.
9. v. To be caused or derived; to originate.
10. v. To descend in a family line.
11. v. To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.
12. v. obsolete To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.
13. v. To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).
14. v. 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.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. obsolete To gleam.
2. n. obsolete A gleam of light; flame.
3. n. The principal body of a tree, shrub, or plant, of any kind; the main stock; the part which supports the branches or the head or top.
4. n. A little branch which connects a fruit, flower, or leaf with a main branch; a peduncle, pedicel, or petiole.
5. n. The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
6. n. A branch of a family.
7. n. (Naut.) A curved piece of timber to which the two sides of a ship are united at the fore end. The lower end of it is scarfed to the keel, and the bowsprit rests upon its upper end. Hence, the forward part of a vessel; the bow.
8. n. Fig.: An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
9. n. Anything resembling a stem or stalk
10. n. (Bot.) That part of a plant which bears leaves, or rudiments of leaves, whether rising above ground or wholly subterranean.
11. n. The entire central axis of a feather.
12. n. The basal portion of the body of one of the Pennatulacea, or of a gorgonian.
13. n. (Mus.) The short perpendicular line added to the body of a note; the tail of a crotchet, quaver, semiquaver, etc.
14. n. (Gram.) The part of an inflected word which remains unchanged (except by euphonic variations) throughout a given inflection; theme; base.
15. v. To remove the stem or stems from; ; to remove the stem and its appendages (ribs and veins) from.
16. v. To ram, as clay, into a blasting hole.
17. v. To oppose or cut with, or as with, the stem of a vessel; to resist, or make progress against; to stop or check the flow of, as a current.
18. v. To move forward against an obstacle, as a vessel against a current.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the tube of a tobacco pipe
2. n. front part of a vessel or aircraft
3. n. a slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ
4. n. (linguistics) the form of word after all affixes are removed
5. n. cylinder forming a long narrow part of something
6. v. remove the stem from
7. v. stop the flow of a liquid
8. v. cause to point inward
9. n. a turn made in skiing; the back of one ski is forced outward and the other ski is brought parallel to it
10. v. grow out of, have roots in, originate in