stern

Definitions

General English

  • adjective

    serious

    and

    strict

Military

  • noun the rear part of a ship.
  • noun a thin sheet of metal or plastic or stiff card, out of which letters or numbers or other shapes have been cut, and which is placed on the

    surface

    of an object (e.g.

    vehicle

    ,

    container

    , etc) and painted over to reproduce the shapes on the surface below
  • noun a stiff sheet of plastic, out of which a selection of geometrical shapes have been cut, and which is used for drawing

    tactical

    symbols on a map

Origin & History of “stern”

English

has two

distinct

words stern. The older, the adjective ‘severe’ (OE), comes

from

a prehistoric Germanic *sternjaz,

which

was probably derived from the base *ster-, *star- ‘be rigid’ (source

also

of English starch,

stare

, starve, etc). Stern ‘rear of a vessel’ (13th c.) is etymologically the ‘steering’ end of a

ship

. The word was probably borrowed from Old Norse stjórn ‘steering’, a derivative of the

same

base as produced stýra ‘steer’ (source of English steer).
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