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stern

adj
/stɜːn/UK/stɝn/US

Etymology

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”).

  1. derived from *ster-✻
  2. inherited from *sturnijaz✻
  3. inherited from styrne
  4. inherited from stern

Definitions

  1. Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.

    • I haue beene wooed, as I intreat thee now, / Euen by the ſterne, and direfull God of warre, / VVhoſe ſinowie necke in battel nere did bow, / VVho conquers where he comes in euery iarre; […]
    • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
    • Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins.

  2. Grim and forbidding in appearance.

    • these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

  3. The rear part (after end) of a ship or other vessel.

    • Holonyms: watercraft < vessel
    • Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.
  4. ›+ 7 more definitions

    1. The post of management or direction.

      • and sit chiefest stern of public weal

    2. The hinder part of anything.

    3. The tail of an animal

      The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.

      • And all attonce her beaſtly bodie raizd / With doubled forces high aboue the ground: / Tho wrapping vp her wrethed ſterne arownd, / Lept fierce vpon his ſhield, [...]

    4. To steer, to direct the course of (a ship).

    5. To propel or move backward or stern-first in the water.

    6. A bird, the black tern, seabird.

    7. A surname.

The neighborhood

Derived

sternity, sternly, sternness, stern plane, stern sex, stern sheets, stern-wheeler, astern, stem to stern, pink stern, square stern, sterncastle, stern chase, stern chaser, sterndrive, sternfast, sternforemost, stern frame, sternless, sternman, sternmost, sternpicker, sternport, sternpost, sternsheets, sternsman, sternward, sternwards, sternway, sternwheel, torpedo stern, tunnel stern

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at stern. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01stern02appearance03eye04iris05colored06colors07color08paint09colours

A definitional loop anchored at stern. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at stern

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA