stelliform

[Lat. stella =a star, and form a =form.] Formed like a star; stellate, radiated. *stěl-11-fy, v. t. [Lat. stella =a star; Eng. suff. -fy.] To make or turn into a star; hence, to make glorious; to glorify. *stěll-ing, 8. [STALLING.] Sheds for cattle. stěl-li-ō, s. [Lat. Lacerta gecko (Linn.), from its star-like spots; stella =a star.] Zool.: A genus of Agamide, having the tail ringed with spinous scales. There are five species, ranging from Greece and the Caucasus to Arabia, the Him a lay as, and Central India. The illustration is from a specimen in the British Museum of Natural History, South Kensington. †stěl-11-on, s . [STELLIO.] IMG:content-0268.png:[blocks in formation] stem Scots and Roman Law : A kind of crime which is committed in law by a deceitful selling of a thing otherwise than it really is; a term used to denote all such crimes, in which fraud is an element, as have no special names to distinguish them, and are not defined by any written law, as when one sel is the same thing to two purchasers, when a debtor pledges to his creditors that which does not belong to him, . IMG:content-0269.jpg:[graphic] It dis "The court of star-chamber is compounded of good elements, for it consist eth of foure kinds of persons, counsellors, peeres, prelates, and chiefe-judges. It cerneth also principally of foure kinds of causes:-forces, frauds, crimes various of stellionate , and the inchoations or middle acts towards crimes capital or hainous, not actually committed or perpetrated." - Bacon: Henry VII ., p. 64. stěll-ite, subst. [Lat. stell ( a )=a star; suff. -ite ( Min .).] Min.: The same as PECTOLITE (q. v.). stěl-lu-lar, a . [ Lat.stellula , dim in. from s'ell a =a star.] *1. Ord . Lang .: Having the appearance of little stars. 2. Nat . Science : Small and radiated, like stars, as some corals, or the markings on the corals themselves. stěl-lu-lāte, adj. [Lat. stellula =a little star.] Resembling little stars. *stē-log-ra-phy, subst . [ Gr.stēlog raphia , from stēlē a pillar, and graphō =to write.] The art or practice of writing or inscribing characters on pil lars. "This pillar thus engraved gave probably the origin to the invention of stelography ." -Stack house: Hist. Bible. stěm, *stam, *stemme, subst . [A.S.stæfn, stefn, stemn=(1) a stem of a tree, (2) the stem or prow of a ve el, (3) a stem or race of people; stefna , stæfna, =the stem or prow of a ve el, from stæf =a staff (q. v.); cogn. with Dut. stam =a trunk, stem, stock; steven a prow; Icel. stafn , stamn, stefni, stemni= the stem of a ve el; stofn , stomn =the stem of a tree; Dan. stamme =the trunk of a tree; stævn =the stem of a ve el; Sw.stam =trunk; stäf =prow; framstam = the forestem, the prow; Ger. stamm =a trunk; steven (or vorder steven ) = the stem.] I. Ordinary Language: 1. Literally: (1) In the same sense as II. 1. "Shrivel'd herbs on withering stems decay." Dryden: Virgil; Georgio i. 157. (2) The peduncle of the fructification or the pedicel of a flower; the petiole or leaf-stem; that which supports the flower or the fruit of a plant. "Two lovely berries molded on one stem." Shakesp.: Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. (3) Anything resembling a stem or stalk; as, the stem or tube of a tobacco-pipe, a thermometer, or the like. (4) In the same sense as II. 6. "Armed the stemme and beake-head of the ship with sharpe tines and pikes of bra ." P. Holland, Pliny, bk. vii., ch. lvi. IMG:content-0270.jpg:[blocks in formation] "Whosoever will undertake the imperial diadem, must have of his own wherewith to support it; which is one of the reasons that it hath continued these two ages and more in that stem , now so much spoken of."- Howel : Vocal Forest. (2) A branch; a branch of a family. "This is a stem Of that victorious stock." Shakesp.: Henry V. , ii. 4. (3) An advanced or leading position; a lookout. 'Wolsey sat at the stem more than twenty years." Fuller . II. Technically : 1. Bot .: The ascending axis of a plant. It seeks the light, strives to expose itself to the air, and expands itself to the utmost extent of its nature to the solar rays. With regard to direction, it may be erect, pendulous, nodding, decumbent, flexuose, creeping, or climbing. It is generally cylindrical; but may be triangular, as in Carex; square, as in the Labiate; two-edged, as in some Cacti; filiform, as in flax; or leaf-like, as in Ruscus. It consists of bundles of vascular and woody ti ue embedded in various ways in cellular substance, the whole being inclosed with an epidermis. Stems may be aërial or underground. The most highly developed form of the former is the trunk of a tree, the next is that of a shrub. There are also herbaceous stems. Sometimes a plant appears stemle ; only, however, because the stem is short enough to be overlooked. In duration, a stem may be annual, biennial, or perennial. In structure it may be exogenous, endogenous, or acrogenous (q. v.). Aerial stems generally branch, and bear leaves, flowers, and pine, pit, sire, sir, marine; gō, põt, IMG:content-0271.jpg:[graphic] fruit. An underground stem is often mistaken for a root, but differs in its capacity of bearing leaves. [RHIZOME.] 2. Mechanics: The projecting-rod which guides a valve in its reciprocations. 3. Mining : A day's work. 4. Music : The line attached to the head of a note. All notes used in modern music but the semibreve, or whole note, have stems; quavers and their subdivisions have stems and hooks. In writing a "single part" for voice or instrument, is to turn the stems of notes lying below the middle line of the stave upward, of notes lying above the middle line downward. Notes on the middle line have their stems up or down as seems best. In "short score," as for four parts, the stems of the higher part in each stave are turned up, those of the lower part down. 5. Ornith.: The main stalk of the feather, bearing all the other external parts, and usually resembling a greatly elongated cone. At the lower part, which is inserted in the skin, it is cylindrical, hollow, and transparent; higher up it is filled with a cellular pith. The parenchymatous portion of the stem is called the shaft, and it is from the flattened sides of this that the barbs i ue. (Nitzsch: Pterylography, sect. i., ch. i.) 6. Ship build.: The upright piece of timber or bar of iron at the fore end of a ve el, to which the forward ends of the stakes are united. With wooden stems the lower end is scarfed into the keel. The upper end supports the bowsprit, and in the obtuse angle is the figure-head. The advanced edge of the stem is the cut-water. It is usually marked with a scale of feet, showing the perpendicular height above the keel, so as to mark the draught of water at the fore-part. Called also stem-post. 7. Vehicles: The bar to which the bow of a falling hood is hinged. IMG:content-0272.png:[blocks in formation] Ship build.: An independent piece (q. v.). stem-post, s. [STEM, II. 6.] stem-winder, s . A watch having a stem or pen dant which may be thrown into engagement with a winding wheel, so as to wind up the spring with out the intervention of a key; a keyle watch. stěm, *stemme, v . t . & i. [Eng.stem=a trunk of a tree, as a trunk thrown into a river stems or checks its current; Icel. stemma =to dam up; Dan. stemme to stem; Ger. stemmen to fell trees, to dam up water.] A. Transitive: 1. To dam up; to check or stop, as a stream or moving force. "Not being able to stem the torrent which he has allowed to burst forth." -London Globe. 2. To make way or progre against, as, a tide or current; to make way or pre forward through. ( Mallet : Amyntor and The odor a , i.) 3. To dash against with the stem; to strike or cut with the stem; as, The ve els stemmed each other . *4. To steer. "He is the master of true courage that all the time sedately stems the ship."- Cornel i us Nepos in English (1723). (Dedic.) 5. To tear out the stem, as of a tobacco leaf. *B. In trans.: To make way in opposition to some obstacle or obstruction, as a tide, a current, the wind, or the like. "They on the trading flood Ply, stemming nightly toward the pole." *steme, v. [STEAM, 8. & v.] Milton: P. L. , ii. 642. stem-le , adj . [Eng. stem; -le ] Having no stem; having the stem so little developed as to appear to be wanting; acaulescent. *stem-lět, s. [Eng. stem, s.; dim in. suff. -let .] A little or young stem.