different between stem vs gammon

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: st?m, IPA^(key): /st?m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

From Middle English stem, stemme, stempne, stevin, from Old English stemn, from Proto-Germanic *stamniz.

Noun

stem (plural stems)

1. The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
   • 1633, George Herbert, Church Monuments

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

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

   • Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.

4. (botany) The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms.
   • 1736, Sir Walter Raleigh, The History of the World in Five Books

     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.

5. 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.
7. A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
8. (linguistics) 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.
9. (slang) A person's leg.
   • 2008, Lori Wilde, Rhonda Nelson, Cara Summers, August Harlequin Blaze

     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.
11. (typography) A vertical stroke of a letter.
12. (music) A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music.

    Synonyms: tail, (obsolete) virgula

13. (music) A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing.
14. (nautical) The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
15. (cycling) A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork.
16. (anatomy) A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications.
17. (slang) A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe.
18. (chiefly Britain) A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism.

Derived terms

Translations

References

“stem” in the Collins English Dictionary

Verb

stem (third-person singular simple present stems, present participle stemming, simple past and past participle stemmed)

1. To remove the stem from.

2. To be caused or derived; to originate.

3. To descend in a family line.
4. To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.
5. (obsolete) To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:

     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.

Synonyms

• (to originate, stem from): to be due to, to arise from

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English stemmen, a borrowing from Old Norse stemma (“to stop, stem, dam”) (whence Danish stemme/stæmme (“to stem, dam up”)), from Proto-Germanic *stammijan?. Cognate with German stemmen, Middle Dutch stemmen, stempen. Compare stammer.

Verb

stem (third-person singular simple present stems, present participle stemming, simple past and past participle stemmed)

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

   to stem a tide

   • 1656, John Denham, The Destruction of Troy

     [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.
2. (skiing) 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.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:hinder

Translations

Etymology 3

Noun

stem (plural stems)

1. Alternative form of steem

Etymology 4

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

Noun

stem (plural stems)

1. Alternative form of STEM
   • 2015 May 29th, BBC News, How do US black students perform at school?

     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.

Further reading

• stem in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• stem in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “stem”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• EMTs, Mets, Smet, TEMs, mets

Afrikaans

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?m/

Etymology 1

From Dutch stem, from Middle Dutch stemme, from Old Dutch *stemma, from Proto-Germanic *stebn?, *stamnij?.

Noun

stem (plural stemme)

1. vote
2. voice

Etymology 2

From Dutch stemmen.

Verb

stem (present stem, present participle stemmende, past participle gestem)

1. to vote

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch stemme, from Old Dutch *stemma, from Proto-Germanic *stebn?, *stamnij?. Under influence of Latin vox (“voice, word”), it acquired the now obsolete sense of “word”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?m/
• Hyphenation: stem
• Rhymes: -?m

Noun

stem f (plural stemmen, diminutive stemmetje n)

1. voice, sound made by the mouth using airflow
2. the ability to speak

3. vote
4. (obsolete) word
5. (phonetics) voice, property formed by vibration of the vocal cords

Derived terms

• foertstem
• proteststem

Descendants

• Afrikaans: stem
• ? Indonesian: setem
• ? Sranan Tongo: sten

Verb

stem

1. first-person singular present indicative of stemmen
2. imperative of stemmen

Anagrams

• mest, mets

Latin

Verb

stem

1. first-person singular present active subjunctive of st?

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

stem

1. imperative of stemme

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

stem

1. imperative of stemme

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English stamp.

Noun

stem

1. stamp

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: g?'m?n, IPA^(key): /??æm?n/
• Rhymes: -æm?n

Etymology 1

From Middle English [Term?], from Old French gambon (compare modern French jambon (“ham”)), from gambe (“leg”), from Late Latin *gamba, from Ancient Greek ????? (kámp?), from Proto-Indo-European *kamp- (“to bend; crooked”). Doublet of jamon.

Noun

gammon (countable and uncountable, plural gammons)

1. A cut of quick-cured pork leg.

Translations

Verb

gammon (third-person singular simple present gammons, present participle gammoning, simple past and past participle gammoned)

1. To cure bacon by salting.

Etymology 2

Probably a special use of Middle English gamen (“game”).

Noun

gammon (countable and uncountable, plural gammons)

1. (backgammon) A victory in backgammon achieved when the opponent has not borne off a single stone.
2. (rare) Backgammon (the game itself).

Related terms

• backgammon

Verb

gammon (third-person singular simple present gammons, present participle gammoning, simple past and past participle gammoned)

1. (backgammon) To beat by a gammon (without the opponent bearing off a stone).

Translations

Etymology 3

Perhaps related to the first etymology, with reference to tying up a ham.

Noun

gammon (plural gammons)

1. (nautical) A rope fastening a bowsprit to the stem of a ship (usually called a gammoning).

Verb

gammon (third-person singular simple present gammons, present participle gammoning, simple past and past participle gammoned)

1. To lash with ropes (on a ship).

Translations

Etymology 4

Perhaps a special use of the word from etymology 2.

Noun

gammon

1. (dated) Chatter, ridiculous nonsense.
   • 1911: Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

     He swore that all other religions were gammon,
     And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.

Verb

gammon (third-person singular simple present gammons, present participle gammoning, simple past and past participle gammoned)

1. (colloquial, dated, transitive) To deceive; to lie plausibly to.

Etymology 5

Gained popularity in 2017 (in the phrase "Great Wall of Gammon", likening the referents' rosy complexions to gammon (“ham, bacon”)), although the metaphor was in use earlier: the BBC points to a 2016 use of "gammon face". Not related to the "gammon tendency" in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, where the word means "nonsense".

Noun

gammon (countable and uncountable, plural gammons)

1. (neologism, derogatory, Britain) A middle-aged or older right-wing, reactionary white man, or such men collectively.

Further reading

• George Pierpoint (14 May 2018) , “Why your social media is covered in gammon”, in BBC News?^[1], BBC

See also

• Karen

References