Other forms: stalks
A stalk is the thin stem holding up a leaf, flower or fruit. A celery stalk, snap the stalk, the stalk of the flower.
It carries water up and food down, and it is stiff because of pressure inside the cells rather than any woody structure — which is why a plant short of water goes limp and recovers when watered. To stalk is a separate word, meaning to follow.
1nounstalkThe thin stem holding up a leaf, flower or fruit.
“Pull the stalks off the strawberries before you wash them.”
stalk is a stem.
Middle English stalke, probably a diminutive of an Old English word for a stalk or support.
Proto-Indo-European
*stel-
Proto-Germanic
*stalukaz
Proto-West Germanic
*staluk
Old English
*stealc
Middle English
stalke
English, today
stalk
Built from
From Middle English stalke, stelke, stalk, perhaps from Old English stealc, stielc, stealuc, from Proto-West Germanic staluk, stalik, from Proto-Germanic stalukaz, stalikaz, diminutive of Proto-Germanic stalô, staluz (“support, stem, stalk”), from Proto-Indo-European stel- (“to place, stand; be stiff; stud, post, trunk, stake, stem, stalk”). 2 Cognate with Dutch staal (“sample”), steel (“stem”), German Stiel (“stalk”), Danish -, Norwegian Bokmål stilk (“stalk, stem”), Faroese stjølur (“bottom part of a sheaf”), Icelandic stilkur (“stalk, stem”), Norwegian Nynorsk stilk, stylk (“stalk, stem”), styl (“lower part of a straw”), Swedish stjälk (“stalk, stem”), Albanian shtalkë (“crossbeam, board used as a door hinge”), Welsh telm (“frond”), Ancient Greek στειλειή (“beam”), xcl ստեղն (“trunk, stalk”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA