stem

The Sailor's Word-Book

The foremost piece uniting the bows of a ship; its lower end scarphs into the keel, and the bowsprit rests upon its upper end. The outside of the stem is usually marked with a scale of feet and inches, answering to a perpendicular from the keel, in order to ascertain the ship's draught of water forward.

♦ False stem. When a ship's stem is too flat, so that she cannot keep a wind well, a false stem, or gripe, is fayed on before the right one, which enables her to hold a better wind.

♦ From stem to stern, from one end of the ship to the other.

♦ To stem, to make way against any obstacle. "She does not stem the tide," that is, she cannot make head against it for want of wind.

The Sailor's Word-Book

← steeving × stem-knee →

Related Words

Stem
·noun A branch of a family. II. Stem ·noun The entire central axis of a feather. III. Stem ·vt To ...

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
Stem-clasping
·adj Embracing the stem with its base; amplexicaul; as a leaf or petiole. ...

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
Stem-winder
·noun A stem-winding watch. ...

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
Stem-winding
·adj Wound by mechanism connected with the stem; as, a stem-winding watch. ...

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
gouty-stem
n. the Australian Baobab-tree (q.v.), Adansonia gregori, F. v. M.According to Maiden (p. 60), Sterc...

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris
armed stem
See beak. ...

The Sailor's Word-Book
false stem
A hard timber fayed to the fore-part of the main stem, its tail covering the fore-end of the keel. (...

The Sailor's Word-Book
stem-knee
In ship-building, the compass-timber which connects the keel with the stem. (See dead-wood knees.) ...

The Sailor's Word-Book