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Vinony

stern

adjective

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L28024 on Wikidata ↗

noun

  1. back or aft-most part of a ship or boat
L328506 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /stɜːn/ / /stɝn/

adj

Etymology: From Middle English stern, sterne, sturne, from Old English styrne (“stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel”), from Proto-Germanic *sturnijaz (“angry, astonished, shocked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with Scots stern (“bold, courageous, fierce, resolute”), Old High German stornēn (“to be astonished”), Dutch stuurs (“glum, austere”), Swedish stursk (“insolent”).

  1. Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.

    “I haue beene wooed, as I intreat thee now, / Euen by the ſterne, and direfull God of warre, / VVhoſe ſinowie necke in battel nere did bow, / VVho conquers where he comes in euery iarre; […]”

    “stern as tutors, and as uncles hard”

  2. Grim and forbidding in appearance.

    “these barren rocks, your stern inheritance”

name

Etymology: * As a German and Jewish surname, from the noun Stern (“star”). This was also borrowed into various Slavic languages such as Serbo-Crotian and Slovenian. * As an English surname, from the adjective stern.

  1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: From a variant of tern.

  1. A bird, the black tern, seabird.

verb

Etymology: Inherited from Middle English sterne, likely from Old Norse stjórn (“control, steering”), related to stýra (“to steer”), from Proto-Germanic *stiurijaną, whence also English steer. Also possibly from Old Frisian stiarne (“rudder”), from the same Germanic root. The sense referring to a management post alludes to the fact that a sailing ship's captain would often stand on an aft deck.

  1. To steer, to direct the course of (a ship).
  2. To propel or move backward or stern-first in the water.