Stem

How to spell stem

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stem

What does stem mean?

1. nounThe main upright stalk of a plant that supports its leaves, flowers, and fruit.
2. verbTo stop or restrict the flow or spread of something.
3. verbTo originate from or be caused by something, usually followed by 'from'.

Stem in a sentence

• noun

  She cut the rose at an angle near the base of the stem.

• verb

  The nurse pressed firmly on the wound to stem the bleeding.

• verb

  Most of her confidence seems to stem from years of public speaking.

• noun

  A long green stem held up the heavy sunflower head.

• verb

  New regulations aim to stem the spread of online fraud.

• verb

  The delays largely stem from a shortage of qualified staff.

Where does stem come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The plant sense of stem comes from the Old English stemn or stefn, a word of Germanic origin that described the upright trunk of a tree and, by extension, the curved upright timber at the front of a ship (the source of the phrase 'from stem to stern'). It is closely related to the German Stamm, meaning 'trunk' or 'tribe', and the same image of a central stalk from which other parts branch gave rise to figurative uses such as the 'stem' of a word or family. The verb meaning 'to stop or hold back the flow of something', as in stemming a tide, has a separate origin: it was borrowed in the medieval period from the Old Norse stemma, 'to dam up or staunch'. A further verb sense, 'to spring or originate from', developed naturally from the noun, since branches and shoots grow out of a stem. These threads have merged into one short, deceptively simple spelling, and the closeness of the noun and the two verbs is why a single four-letter word now covers so many meanings.

How the word is built

• stem (single root, from Old English stemn / stefn, the upright post of a tree or ship)