The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Stem \Stem\, Steem \Steem\, v. i.
   To gleam. [Obs.]
   [1913 Webster]

         His head bald, that shone as any glass, . . .
         [And] stemed as a furnace of a leed [caldron].
                                                  --Chaucer.
   [1913 Webster] Stem

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Stem \Stem\, Steem \Steem\, n.
   A gleam of light; flame. [Obs.]
   [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Stem \Stem\ (st[e^]m), n. [AS. stemn, stefn, staefn; akin to OS.
   stamn the stem of a ship, D. stam stem, steven stem of a
   ship, G. stamm stem, steven stem of a ship, Icel. stafn,
   stamn, stem of a ship, stofn, stomn, stem, Sw. stam a tree
   trunk, Dan. stamme. Cf. Staff, Stand.]
   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.
      [1913 Webster]

            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.
      [1913 Webster]

            The lowering spring, with lavish rain,
            Beats down the slender stem and breaded grain.
                                                  --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The stock of a family; a race or generation of
      progenitors. "All that are of noble stem." --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

            While I do pray, learn here thy stem
            And true descent.                     --Herbert.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. A branch of a family.
      [1913 Webster]

            This is a stem
            Of that victorious stock.             --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

   6. Fig.: An advanced or leading position; the lookout.
      [1913 Webster]

            Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years.
                                                  --Fuller.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

   8. (Bot.) That part of a plant which bears leaves, or
      rudiments of leaves, whether rising above ground or wholly
      subterranean.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
          [1913 Webster]

   10. (Mus.) The short perpendicular line added to the body of
       a note; the tail of a crotchet, quaver, semiquaver, etc.
       [1913 Webster]

   11. (Gram.) The part of an inflected word which remains
       unchanged (except by euphonic variations) throughout a
       given inflection; theme; base.
       [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Stem \Stem\, v. t.
   1. To remove the stem or stems from; as, to stem cherries; to
      remove the stem and its appendages (ribs and veins) from;
      as, to stem tobacco leaves.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To ram, as clay, into a blasting hole.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Stem \Stem\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Stemmed; p. pr. & vb. n.
   Stemming.] [Either from stem, n., or akin to stammer; cf.
   G. stemmen to press against.]
   To oppose or cut with, or as with, the stem of a vessel; to
   resist, or make progress against; to stop or check the flow
   of, as a current. "An argosy to stem the waves." --Shak.
   [1913 Webster]

         [They] stem the flood with their erected breasts.
                                                  --Denham.
   [1913 Webster]

         Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age. --Pope.
   [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Stem \Stem\, v. i.
   To move forward against an obstacle, as a vessel against a
   current.
   [1913 Webster]

         Stemming nightly toward the pole.        --Milton.
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

stem
    n 1: (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are
         removed; "thematic vowels are part of the stem" [syn:
         root, root word, base, stem, theme, radical]
    2: a slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or
       fungus or a plant part or plant organ [syn: stalk, stem]
    3: cylinder forming a long narrow part of something [syn:
       shank, stem]
    4: the tube of a tobacco pipe
    5: front part of a vessel or aircraft; "he pointed the bow of
       the boat toward the finish line" [syn: bow, fore, prow,
       stem]
    6: a turn made in skiing; the back of one ski is forced outward
       and the other ski is brought parallel to it [syn: stem
       turn, stem]
    v 1: grow out of, have roots in, originate in; "The increase in
         the national debt stems from the last war"
    2: cause to point inward; "stem your skis"
    3: stop the flow of a liquid; "staunch the blood flow"; "stem
       the tide" [syn: stem, stanch, staunch, halt]
    4: remove the stem from; "for automatic natural language
       processing, the words must be stemmed"

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

467 Moby Thesaurus words for "stem":
   IC analysis, Maypole, V, accidence, accrue from, adjutage, advance,
   affiliation, affix, affixation, affront, allomorph, animal kingdom,
   ankle, antagonize, anthrophore, apparentation, arise, arise from,
   arrest, ascender, axis, back, baluster, balustrade, banister, bar,
   base, bastard type, battle, bayonet legs, be contingent on,
   be due to, beak, beard, beat against, beat up against, beginning,
   belly, bevel, bifurcate, birth, black letter, block, blood,
   bloodline, body, bole, bound morpheme, bow, bowlegs, bows,
   bowsprit, brake, branch, branch out, brave, breast,
   breast the wave, breed, bring before, bring forward, bring to,
   bring up, bring up short, brood, buck, bud from, buffet,
   buffet the waves, calf, cane, cap, capital, carpophore, caryatid,
   case, catheter, caudex, caulicle, caulis, challenge, check,
   checkmate, clan, class, close with, cnemis, colonnade, column,
   combat, come, come along, come from, come on, come out of,
   commencement, common ancestry, compete with, conception, confront,
   confront with, conjugation, consanguinity, contend against,
   contest, control, counter, cover ground, crotch, crutch, culm,
   curb, cut short, cutting, dado, dam, dare, deadlock, declension,
   defy, delta, deme, depend on, derivation, derive, derive from,
   descend, descend from, descender, descent, develop, die,
   difference of form, diminish, direct line, distaff side,
   divaricate, drainpipe, draw rein, drumstick, efflux tube, em,
   emanate, emanate from, emerge from, en, enclitic, encounter,
   ensue from, envisage, extraction, face, face with, family, fan,
   fat-faced type, feet, female line, fight, fight against,
   figurehead, filiation, fire hose, flagstaff, flow, flow from,
   flue pipe, folk, follow from, font, footstalk, forecastle,
   foredeck, foreleg, forepeak, fork, formative, free form, freeze,
   front, funicule, funiculus, funnel, furcate, furcula, furculum,
   gain ground, gamb, gambrel, garden hose, gas pipe, gather head,
   gather way, generate, genesis, gens, germinate from, get ahead,
   get along, gigot, go, go ahead, go along, go fast, go forward,
   go on, grapple with, grass roots, groin, groove, grow, grow from,
   grow out of, halt, ham, hang on, haulm, head, hind leg, hinge on,
   hock, hose, hosepipe, house, immediate constituent analysis,
   inception, infix, infixation, inflection, inguen, issue,
   issue from, italic, jack, jamb, jib boom, join battle with, kind,
   knee, labor against, lay before, leafstalk, leg, lessen, letter,
   ligature, limb, line, line of descent, lineage, logotype,
   lower case, majuscule, make good time, make head against,
   make progress, make progress against, make strides, make up leeway,
   male line, matriclan, meet, meet squarely, militate against,
   minuscule, morph, morpheme, morphemic analysis, morphemics,
   morphology, morphophonemics, move, move forward, nation,
   newel-post, nick, nipple, nose, offer resistance, offshoot, order,
   organ pipe, origin, original, originate, originate in, origination,
   paradigm, pass along, pass on, patriclan, pedestal, pedicel,
   peduncle, people, petiole, petiolule, petiolus, phratry, phyle,
   phylum, pi, pica, pier, pilaster, pile, piling, pillar, pipe,
   pipeline, pipette, piping, place before, plant kingdom, plinth,
   podite, point, pole, popliteal space, post, prefix, prefixation,
   present to, prevail over, print, proceed, proceed from, proclitic,
   progress, prong, prore, provenience, prow, pull up, put it to,
   put paid to, queen-post, quell, race, radical, radix, ramification,
   ramify, reduce, reed, reed pipe, reluct, reluctate, resist, result,
   retard, rise, rival, rod, roll, roman, root, rostrum, sans serif,
   scape, scissor-legs, script, seed, seedstalk, sept, set before,
   shaft, shank, shin, shoot, shoulder, siamese, siamese connection,
   side, siphon, slow, small cap, small capital, snorkel, socle,
   soil pipe, source, spear, spear side, species, spindle side, spire,
   spring, spring from, sprout, sprout from, staff, stalemate, stalk,
   stall, stamp, stanch, stanchion, stand, standard, standpipe,
   staunch, stay, steam pipe, stem from, stem the tide, stems,
   step forward, stick, stipe, stirps, stock, stop, stop cold,
   stop dead, stop short, strain, straw, strive against,
   struggle against, stumps, subbase, succession, suffix, suffixation,
   suppress, surbase, sword side, take on, tap, taproot, tarsus,
   theme, tigella, tongue, totem, totem pole, travel, tribe, trident,
   trifurcate, trotters, trunk, tube, tubing, tubulation, tubule,
   tubulet, tubulure, turn on, type, type body, type class, type lice,
   typecase, typeface, typefounders, typefoundry, upper case, upright,
   vie with, waste pipe, water pipe, wishbone, withstand,
   word-formation



U.S. Gazetteer Places (2000):

Stem, NC -- U.S. town in North Carolina
   Population (2000):    229
   Housing Units (2000): 102
   Land area (2000):     0.936489 sq. miles (2.425495 sq. km)
   Water area (2000):    0.001160 sq. miles (0.003004 sq. km)
   Total area (2000):    0.937649 sq. miles (2.428499 sq. km)
   FIPS code:            64940
   Located within:       North Carolina (NC), FIPS 37
   Location:             36.200527 N, 78.723605 W
   ZIP Codes (1990):     27581
   Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
   Headwords:
    Stem, NC
    Stem