What is the difference between stalk and stem?
stalk | stem |
The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.
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*:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, withon one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
:(Grew)
(lb) An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
:(Chaucer)
(label)
#A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
#The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
#The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
(lb) An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
(lb) To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
*Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)
*:As for shooting a man from behind a wall, it is cruelly like to stalking a deer.
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*:But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking .
(lb) To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.(w)
:
(lb) To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner.
*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
*:[Bertran] stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, / Pressing to be employed.
:(Shakespeare)
(lb) To walk behind something, such as a screen, for the purpose of approaching game; to proceed under cover.
*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
*:The king"I must stalk ," said he.
*(Michael Drayton) (1563-1631)
*:One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk .
A particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.
A hunt (of a wild animal).
To walk haughtily.
* Dryden
* Addison
* Mericale
The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.
* Milton
* Herbert
A branch of a family.
* Shakespeare
An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
* Fuller
(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.
* Sir Walter Raleigh
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.
*
A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon.
(linguistic morphology) 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 [[declension, declensions derive from their stems.
(typography) A vertical stroke of a letter.
(music) A vertical stroke of a symbol representing a note in written music.
(nautical) The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached.
To remove the stem from.
To be caused]] or [[derive, derived; to originate.
To descend in a family line.
To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against.
(obsolete) To hit with the stem of a ship; to ram.
* 1596 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , IV.ii:
To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole.
To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood).
* Denham
* Alexander Pope
(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.
Stem is a synonym of stalk.
As nouns the difference between stalk and stem
is that stalk is the stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts while stem is the stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors.As verbs the difference between stalk and stem
is that stalk is to approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer while stem is to remove the stem from.stalk
English
(wikipedia stalk)Etymology 1
From (etyl) stalke, diminutive of stale'' 'ladder upright, stalk', from (etyl) stalu 'wooden upright', from (etyl) ).Noun
(en noun)Etymology 2
From (etyl) stalken, from (etyl) -).Robert K. Barnhart and Sol Steinmetz, eds., ''Chambers Dictionary of Etymology , s.v. "stalk2" (New York: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2006), 1057. Alternate etymology connects (etyl) 'to steal'.Verb
(en verb)Conjugation
(en-conj-simple)Noun
(en noun)References
Etymology 3
1530, 'to walk haughtily', perhaps from (etyl) 'high, lofty, steep, stiff'; see aboveVerb
(en verb)- With manly mien he stalked along the ground.
- Then stalking through the deep, / He fords the ocean.
- I forbear myself from entering the lists in which he has long stalked alone and unchallenged.
Anagrams
* English terms with multiple etymologies ----stem
English
(wikipedia stem)Etymology 1
(etyl) stemn, .Noun
(en noun)- all that are of noble stem
- While I do pray, learn here thy stem / And true descent.
- This is a stem / Of that victorious stock.
- Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.
- 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 .
- the stem of an apple or a cherry
Derived terms
* brain stem * from stem to stern * stem cell * stemless * stemplot * unstemmedVerb
(stemm)- to stem''' cherries; to '''stem tobacco leaves
- The current crisis stems from the short-sighted politics of the previous government.
- 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
Etymology 2
From (etyl) . Cognate with German stemmen, Dutch stemmen, stempen; compare (stammer).Verb
(stemm)- to stem a tide
- [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.
- Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age.
