Other forms: stems, stemming, stemmed
A stem is the main stalk of a plant, and to stem is to stop a flow. A long stem, cut the stem, stem the bleeding.
The plant sense is the base: the stem holds the plant up and carries water from the root to the leaves. From it come the stem of a glass, the stem of a word before its endings, and the verb, as in stem the tide.
1nounstemThe main stalk of a plant.
“Cut the stems of the roses at an angle before you put them in water.”
2verbstopTo stop a flow.
“The nurse pressed a cloth on the wound to stem the bleeding.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
stem is a stalk, or a stopping.
Old English stemn meant the trunk of a tree. The verb to stem, meaning to stop, comes from Old Norse stemma.
Middle English
stemme
English, today
stem
From Middle English stemme. From Middle English stem, stemme, stempne, stevin, from Old English stemn (“stem”), from Proto-West Germanic stamni, from Proto-Germanic stamniz (“stem, tree stalk”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European steh₂- (“to stand, stay”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA