Definitions for stern
stɜrnstern

Princeton's WordNet(3.00 / 4 votes)Rate this definition:

1. stern, after part, quarter, poop, tailnoun

   the rear part of a ship

2. Stern, Isaac Sternnoun

   United States concert violinist (born in Russia in 1920)

3. buttocks, nates, arse, butt, backside, bum, buns, can, fundament, hindquarters, hind end, keister, posterior, prat, rear, rear end, rump, stern, seat, tail, tail end, tooshie, tush, bottom, behind, derriere, fanny, assadjective

   the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on

   "he deserves a good kick in the butt"; "are you going to sit on your fanny and do nothing?"

4. austere, sternadjective

   of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect

   "an austere expression"; "a stern face"

5. grim, inexorable, relentless, stern, unappeasable, unforgiving, unrelentingadjective

   not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty

   "grim determination"; "grim necessity"; "Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty"; "relentless persecution"; "the stern demands of parenthood"

6. stern, strict, exactingadjective

   severe and unremitting in making demands

   "an exacting instructor"; "a stern disciplinarian"; "strict standards"

7. austere, severe, stark, sternadjective

   severely simple

   "a stark interior"

Wiktionary(3.50 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. sternnoun

   The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.

2. Etymology: From stern, sterne, sturne, from styrne, from sturnijaz, from ster-. Cognate with stern, stornen, stuurs, stursk.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. STERNadjective

   Etymology: styrn , Saxon.

   1. Severe of countenance; truculent of aspect.

   Why look you still so stern and tragical. William Shakespeare, H. VI.

   I would outstare the sternest eyes that look,
   Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,
   Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,
   Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey,
   To win thee, lady. William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.

   It shall not be amiss here to present the stern but lively countenance of this so famous a man. Richard Knolles, Hist. of the Turks.

   Gods and men
   Fear’d her stern frown, and she was queen o’ th’ woods. John Milton.

   2. Severe of manners; harsh; unrelenting; cruel.

   My sometime general,
   I’ve seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld
   Heart-hard’ning spectacles. William Shakespeare, Coriolanus.

   Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;
   Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless. William Shakespeare.

   The common executioner,
   Whose heart th’ accustom’d sight of death makes hard,
   Falls not the ax upon the humbled neck,
   But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
   Than he that deals and lives by bloody drops? William Shakespeare.

   Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
   When that the poor have cry’d, Cæsar hath wept;
   Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. William Shakespeare, Jul. Cæs.

   Then shall the war, and stern debate and strife
   Immortal, be the bus’ness of my life;
   And in thy fane the dusty spoils among,
   High on the burnish’d roof, my banner shall be hung. Dryd.

   How stern as tutors, and as uncles hard,
   We lash the pupil and defraud the ward. John Dryden, Pers.

   3. Hard; afflictive.

   If wolves had at thy gate howl’d that stern time,
   Thou shouldst have said, Go, porter, turn the key,
   All cruels else subscrib’d. William Shakespeare, King Lear.

2. Sternnoun

   Etymology: steor , Saxon. Of the same original with steer.

   1. The hind part of the ship where the rudder is placed.

   Let a barbarous Indian, who had never seen a ship, view the separate and disjointed parts, as the prow and stern, the ribs, masts, ropes, and shrouds, he would form but a very lame idea of it. Isaac Watts, Improvement of the Mind.

   They turn their heads to sea, their sterns to land. Dryd.

   2. Post of management; direction.

   The king from Eltam I intend to send,
   And sit at chiefest stern of publick weal. William Shakespeare, H. VI.

   3. The hinder part of any thing.

   She all at once her beastly body raised,
   With doubled forces high above the ground,
   Though wrapping up her wreathed stern around. Fa. Queen.

Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Sternnoun

   the black tern

2. Stern

   having a certain hardness or severity of nature, manner, or aspect; hard; severe; rigid; rigorous; austere; fixed; unchanging; unrelenting; hence, serious; resolute; harsh; as, a sternresolve; a stern necessity; a stern heart; a stern gaze; a stern decree

3. Sternverb

   the helm or tiller of a vessel or boat; also, the rudder

4. Sternverb

   the after or rear end of a ship or other vessel, or of a boat; the part opposite to the stem, or prow

5. Sternverb

   fig.: The post of management or direction

6. Sternverb

   the hinder part of anything

7. Sternverb

   the tail of an animal; -- now used only of the tail of a dog

8. Sternadjective

   being in the stern, or being astern; as, the stern davits

9. Etymology: [Icel. stjrn a steering, or a doubtful AS. stern. 166. See Steer, v. t.]

Freebase(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Stern

   The stern is the rear or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section of the ship, but eventually came to refer to the entire back of a vessel. The stern end of a ship is indicated with a white navigation light at night. Sterns on European and American wooden sailing ships began with two principal forms: the square or transom stern and the elliptical, fantail, or merchant stern, and were developed in that order. The hull sections of a sailing ship located before the stern are composed of a series of U-shaped rib-like frames set in a sloped or "cant" arrangement, with the last frame before the stern being called the fashion timber or fashion piece, so called for "fashioning" the after part of the ship. This frame is designed to support the various beams that make up the stern. In 1817 the British naval architect Sir Robert Seppings first introduced the concept of the round or circular stern. The square stern had been an easy target for enemy cannon, and could not support the weight of heavy stern chase guns. But Seppings' design left the rudder head exposed, and was regarded by many as simply ugly—no American warships were designed with such sterns, and the round stern was quickly superseded by the elliptical stern. The United States began building the first elliptical stern warship in 1820, a decade before the British. The USS Brandywine became the first sailing ship to sport such a stern. Though a great improvement over the transom stern in terms of its vulnerability to attack when under fire, elliptical sterns still had obvious weaknesses which the next major stern development—the iron-hulled cruiser stern—addressed far better and with much different materials.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Stern

   stėrn, adj. severe of countenance, manner, or feeling: austere: harsh: unrelenting: steadfast.—adv. Stern′ly.—n. Stern′ness. [A.S. styrne.]

2. Stern

   stėrn, n. the hind-part of a vessel: the rump or tail of an animal.—v.t. to back a boat, to row backward.—ns. Stern′age (Shak.), the steerage or stern of a ship; Stern′board, backward motion of a ship: loss of way in tacking; Stern′-chase, a chase in which one ship follows directly in the wake of another; Stern′-chās′er, a cannon in the stern of a ship.—adj. Sterned, having a stern of a specified kind.—ns. Stern′-fast, a rope or chain for making fast a ship's stern to a wharf, &c.; Stern′-frame, the sternpost, transoms, and fashion-pieces of a ship's stern.—adj. Stern′most, farthest astern.—ns. Stern′port, a port or opening in the stern of a ship; Stern′post, the aftermost timber of a ship which supports the rudder; Stern′sheets, the part of a boat between the stern and the rowers; Stern′son, the hinder extremity of a ship's keelson, to which the sternpost is bolted; Stern′way, the backward motion of a vessel; Stern′-wheel′er (U.S.), a small vessel with one large paddle-wheel at the stern. [Ice. stjórn, a steering.]

Dictionary of Nautical Terms(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. stern

   The after-part of a ship, ending in the taffarel above and the counters below.--By the stern. The condition of a vessel which draws more water abaft than forward.

Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Stern

   (J)., Rabbiner, German writer, born of Jewish parents, Liederstetten (Wurtemburg), his father being Rabbi of the town. In ’58 he went to the Talmud High School, Presburg and studied the Kabbalah, which he intended to translate into German. To do this he studied Spinoza, whose philosophy converted him. In ’63 he graduated at Stuttgart. He founded a society, to which he gave discourses collected in his first book, Gottesflamme, ’72. His Old and New Faith Among the Jews, ’78, was much attacked by the orthodox Jews. In Women in the Talmud, ’79, he pleaded for mixed marriages. He has also written Jesus as a Jewish Reformer, The Egyptian Religion and Positivism, and Is the Pentateuch by Moses? In ’81 he went to live at Stuttgart, where he has translated Spinoza’s Ethics, and is engaged on a history of Spinozism.

Matched Categories

1. • Rear
   • Violinist

Anagrams for stern »

1. ernst

How to pronounce stern?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say stern in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of stern in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of stern in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4

Examples of stern in a Sentence

1. John McCarthy:

   We have even based the stern painting on a real contemporary Dutch painting, Vermeersfamous Milkmaid,painted just one year before the ship was wrecked.

2. Howard Stern:

   A more self-serving person would have gone all in on Donald Trump, i'd probably be Howard Stern or a Supreme Court justice by now.

3. Henry Stern:

   Stern – a former teacher – said one-third of all California teachers quit before their fifthyear because of the financial hardships placed on them due to low pay and the state’s high cost of living. You're not going to be able to get paid $ 50,000 a year and go live in the Bay Area, go teach at the local school.... we think it's a pretty creative tool, we'll see how the fiscal conservatives in this house want to approach this.

4. James Judge:

   We had a group of people that were on the ground we had identified that wanted to get out, especially if things went sideways, bryan Stern, who is on our team, could feel the explosions in Kyiv and said, ‘Alright, we need to go, we need to get out of here.’.

5. Takashi Kawakami:

   Ms. Inada is an ultra-conservative politician and this will be taken as preparation for achieving constitutional revision and adopting a stern stance toward China.

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