stem

noun19

1. •
   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. — 1736
2. •
   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.
3. •
   A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
4. •
   A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.
5. •
   A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.
6. •
   (slang) A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
7. •
   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.
8. •
   The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
9. •
   The front part of a vessel.

   • 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. — 1587
10. •
    A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.
11. •
    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. — 1634
12. •
    A branch of a family.

    • This is a stem / Of that victorious stock. — 1599
13. •
    A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
14. •
    A vertical stroke of a letter.
15. •
    A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.
16. •
    (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. — 2008
17. •
    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.
18. •
    (slang) The penis.

    • Waves of ecstasy roll through him as the moustachioed Casanova slides his stem in and out of the spaced-out chick. — 2005
19. •
    An advanced or leading position; the lookout.

    • Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years. — 1655

verb9

1. •
   To be caused or derived; to originate.

   • The current crisis stems from the short-sighted politics of the previous government.
2. •
   To descend in a family line.
3. •
   To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).

   • [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts. — 1636
4. •
   To remove the stem from.

   • to stem cherries; to stem tobacco leaves
5. •
   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.
6. •
   To use a stance with the feet spread apart, bracing them in opposite directions against the two walls of a chimney or dihedral.
7. •
   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. — 1851
8. •
   To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole.
9. •
   (no longer used) To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.

noun2

1. •
   Acronym of science, technology, engineering, (and) mathematics.

   • Table 7 shows that in general, the STEM subjects share more phrases with each other, while the opposite is true for the humanities subjects. — 2018
2. •
   Acronym of scanning transmission electron microscope.