Other forms: sterner, sternest, sternly
Stern means serious and strict, with no give in it. A stern face across the table, a stern letter from the bank, a teacher who gives you one stern look and the room goes quiet.
It goes with people, faces, voices, warnings and measures, and it is a shade more formal than strict — you meet it in writing more than in speech. A stern warning and stern measures are the two you will see most. Be careful not to read it as angry: a stern person is not shouting, they are holding the warmth back, and that is a different thing. You are stern with somebody, not stern at them. There is also a second stern that has nothing to do with any of this — the back end of a boat, the end opposite the bow, which is why sailors talk about a ship from stem to stern.
1adjectivesternSerious and strict, showing no warmth and expecting to be obeyed.~47%
“The head gave him a stern look and said nothing.”
2adjectiveharshHard to bear or hard to pass — of rules, punishment, or a test.~2%
“The court took a stern view of it.”
3nounendThe back end of a boat or ship.~51%
“He stood at the stern and watched the harbour get smaller.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 175 sentences found in the wild and placed 60 of them on a sense (115 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: severe
STERN → a face of STONE
The head teacher's face is cut from grey stone. The mouth is a straight line, the eyes never move, and the whole class goes quiet.
hooks ontostone
Two words again, sharing a spelling. The strict one is Old English styrne, from a root meaning rigid or stiff — a stern face is a stiff one. The back of a ship is Old Norse stjórn, steering: the man with the rudder stood at that end, so the steering end gave its name to the whole end.
Proto-Indo-European
*ster- — rigid, stiff
Proto-Germanic
*sturnijaz — angry, astonished, shocked
Old English
styrne — stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel
Middle English
stern
English, today
stern
From Middle English stern, sterne, sturne, from Old English styrne (“stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel”), from Proto-Germanic sturnijaz (“angry, astonished, shocked”), from Proto-Indo-European ster- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with Scots stern (“bold, courageous, fierce, resolute”), Old High German stornēn (“to be astonished”), Dutch stuurs (“glum, austere”), Swedish stursk (“insolent”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA