stem

noun

1. The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.

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

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

2. A branch of a family.

   “This is a stem / Of that victorious stock.”

3. A branch of a family.
4. An advanced or leading position; the lookout.

   “Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.”

5. The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms.

   “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.”

   “He had placed her upon the grass by now, her back resting against the stem of a huge tree. At her question he stepped back where he could the better see her face.”

6. 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”

   “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.”

7. A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
8. 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.

   “The praenomen and nomen for the most part consisted of simple stems with the suffix -us or -ius, which correspond to some of the contracted forms in other languages […].”

9. (slang)A person's leg.

   “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.”

10. (slang)The penis.

    “Waves of ecstasy roll through him as the moustachioed Casanova slides his stem in and out of the spaced-out chick.”

11. A vertical stroke of a letter.
12. A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.
13. A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.

    “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.”

14. The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
15. (broadly)The front part of a vessel.

    “from stem to stern”

    “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.”

16. A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.
17. A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
18. (slang)A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
19. (British)A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.
20. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of steem.
21. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of STEM.

    “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.”

22. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of stemme (“lesbian who combines stud and femme traits”).
23. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, countable)Acronym of scanning transmission electron microscope.
24. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, uncountable)Acronym of science, technology, engineering, (and) mathematics.

    “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.”

    “Table 7 shows that in general, the STEM subjects share more phrases with each other, while the opposite is true for the humanities subjects.”

    “Despite wide efforts to encourage more girls and young women to pursue careers in STEM, a new survey from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation found Gen Z girls significantly lag behind boys in the level of interest expressed in STEM subjects, suggesting more must be done to close the gender gap.”

verb

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.”

   “Weight stigma often stems from an idea that patients are at fault for their body size.”

3. To descend in a family line.
4. To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.

   “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.

   “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.
7. (transitive)To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).

   “to stem a tide”

   “[They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.”

   “Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age.”

8. 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.
9. To use a stance with the feet spread apart, bracing them in opposite directions against the two walls of a chimney or dihedral.

name

1. A surname.