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Meaning of stem in English
Pronunciation
/stɛm/
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Verb
stem
Etymology
Middle English (in the sense ‘to stop, delay’): from Old Norse stemma, of Germanic origin. The skiing term (early 20th century) is from the German verb stemmen
Definitions
1.
grow out of, have roots in, originate in
Examples
« The increase in the national debt stems from the last war »
2.
cause to point inward
Examples
« stem your skis »
3.
stop the flow of a liquid
Examples
« staunch the blood flow »
« them the tide »
4.
remove the stem from
Examples
« for automatic natural language processing, the words must be stemmed »
Noun
stem
Etymology
Old English stemn, stefn, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch stam and German Stamm. stem (sense 4 of the noun) is related to Dutch steven, German Steven
Definitions
1.
(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed
Examples
« thematic vowels are part of the stem »
2.
a slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ
3.
cylinder forming a long narrow part of something
4.
the tube of a tobacco pipe
5.
front part of a vessel or aircraft
Examples
« he pointed the bow of the boat toward the finish line »
6.
a turn made in skiing
Examples
« the back of one ski is forced outward and the other ski is brought parallel to it »