stern

Meanings

Adjective

• Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
• Grim and forbidding in appearance.

Noun

• The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
• The post of management or direction.
• The hinder part of anything.
• The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
• A bird, the black tern.

Verb

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

Related

Similar words

• poop

Opposite words

• bow

Origin

• 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").
• Most likely from Old Norse stjórn ("control, steering"), related to stýra, from Proto-Germanic *stiurijaną, whence also English steer. Also possibly from Old Frisian stiarne ("rudder"), from the same Germanic root.
• From a variant of tern.