Stem n.
 1. The principal body of a tree, shrub, or plant, of any kind; the main stock; the part which supports the branches or the head or top.
    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.   --Sir W. Raleigh.
 The lowering spring, with lavish rain,
 Beats down the slender stem and breaded grain.   --Dryden.
 2. A little branch which connects a fruit, flower, or leaf with a main branch; a peduncle, pedicel, or petiole; as, the stem of an apple or a cherry.
 3. The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors. “All that are of noble stem.”
 While I do pray, learn here thy stem
 And true descent.   --Herbert.
 4. A branch of a family.
 This is a stem
 Of that victorious stock.   --Shak.
 5. Naut. A curved piece of timber to which the two sides of a ship are united at the fore end. The lower end of it is scarfed to the keel, and the bowsprit rests upon its upper end. Hence, the forward part of a vessel; the bow.
 6. Fig.: An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
    Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.   --Fuller.
 7. Anything resembling a stem or stalk; as, the stem of a tobacco pipe; the stem of a watch case, or that part to which the ring, by which it is suspended, is attached.
 8. Bot. That part of a plant which bears leaves, or rudiments of leaves, whether rising above ground or wholly subterranean.
 9. Zool. (a) The entire central axis of a feather. (b) The basal portion of the body of one of the Pennatulacea, or of a gorgonian.
 10. Mus. The short perpendicular line added to the body of a note; the tail of a crotchet, quaver, semiquaver, etc.
 11. Gram. The part of an inflected word which remains unchanged (except by euphonic variations) throughout a given inflection; theme; base.
 From stem to stern Naut., from one end of the ship to the other, or through the whole length.
 Stem leaf Bot., a leaf growing from the stem of a plant, as contrasted with a basal or radical leaf.