Stem mat opter is (stem at opter is)

[NL., 3. To make headway against by sailing or swimming, as a tide or current; hence, in gen- The breathle Muse awhile her wearied wings shall ease, To get her strength to stem the rough Sabrinian seas. Drayton, Polyolbion, iii. 434. II. in trans. 1. To make headway (as a ship); especially, to make progre in opposition to some obstruction, as a current of water or the wind. They on the trading flood, Through the wide Æthiopian to the Cape, Ply, stemming nightly toward the pole. Milton , P. L., ii. 642. 7. In philol., a derivative from a root, having itself inflected forms, whether of declension or of conjugation, made from it: the unchanged part in a series of inflectional forms, from which the forms are viewed as made by additions; base; crude form. - Aërial stem, the above-ground axis of a plant, as opposed to the rootstock or other subterranean form of the stem. - Ancipital, compound, erect, herbaceous, pituitary, secondary, etc., stem. See the adjectives. At first we could scarce lie S. W., but, being got a degree to the Southward of the Line, the Wind veer'd most Easterly, and then we stemmed S. W. by S. Dampier , Voyages, I. 79. stem3 (stem), v. t.; pret. and pp. stemmed, ppr. stemming. [ but to divert it. Alliterative Poems (ed. Morris), ii. 905. The best way is, ever, not to attempt to stem a torrent, A. Hamilton, To Washington (Works, I. 345). He who stems a stream with sand. Scott, L. of the L., iii. 28. A genus of fo il plants, established by Corda, under which various stems or trunks of tree ferns have been grouped, but little being known in regard to them, except the form of the scars or impre ions marking the points of attachment of the petioles. Lesquereux describes remains of this kind under the names of Stem mat opter is, Caulop teris, Mega phyton, and Psaronius; but, as he remarks, they could all have been described without inconvenience under the name of Caul opter is. These fo il remains are common in the coal-measures. See Caul opter is.