His head bald, that shone as any glass, . . . [And]
stemed as a furnace of a leed [caldron]. --Chaucer.
Stemming nightly toward the pole. --Milton.
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. --Sir W.
Raleigh.
The lowering spring, with lavish rain, Beats down
the slender stem and breaded grain. --Dryden.
2. A little branch which connects a fruit, flower, or leaf
with a main branch; a peduncle, pedicel, or petiole; as,
the stem of an apple or a cherry.
3. The stock of a family; a race or generation of
progenitors. ``All that are of noble stem.'' --Milton.
While I do pray, learn here thy stem And true
descent. --Herbert.
This is a stem Of that victorious stock. --Shak.
5. (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.
6. Fig.: An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.
--Fuller.
7. Anything resembling a stem or stalk; as, the stem of a
tobacco pipe; the stem of a watch case, or that part to
which the ring, by which it is suspended, is attached.
8. (Bot.) That part of a plant which bears leaves, or
rudiments of leaves, whether rising above ground or wholly
subterranean.
9. (Zo["o]l.)
(a) The entire central axis of a feather.
(b) The basal portion of the body of one of the
Pennatulacea, or of a gorgonian.
10. (Mus.) The short perpendicular line added to the body of
a note; the tail of a crotchet, quaver, semiquaver, etc.
11. (Gram.) The part of an inflected word which remains
unchanged (except by euphonic variations) throughout a
given inflection; theme; base.
{From stem to stern} (Naut.), from one end of the ship to the
other, or through the whole length.
{Stem leaf} (Bot.), a leaf growing from the stem of a plant,
as contrasted with a basal or radical leaf.
2. To ram, as clay, into a blasting hole.
[They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.
--Denham.
Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age. --Pope.