stemming

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of stem.

   Disputes stemming from the old contract delayed the sale.

   She was stemming the tide of complaints with daily updates.

   Note

   Several verbs share this spelling. Stem can mean to pull the stem off a fruit, to originate, to descend in a family line, to make headway against something, or to pack clay into a blasting hole. The two you will meet most take different constructions. The 'originate' meaning pairs with from (disputes stemming from the contract), while the 'headway' meaning takes a direct object (stemming the tide).

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A computational process that strips inflectional, and sometimes derivational, affixes from words to reduce them to a common base form.

   Applying stemming reduced the vocabulary size dramatically before the model was trained.

   The library's index relied on stemming to group word variants under one entry.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A search-engine technique that includes a term's inflected forms in a query, so a search for one word also matches its variants.

   The search engine's stemming returned results for 'compute,' 'computed,' and 'computing' alike.

   Enabling stemming broadened the query and surfaced documents the exact phrase had missed.

   Note

   This sense moves the affix-stripping process from the index to the search box. That process works on the text being stored. This one names something a searcher can switch on, so a query for compute also finds computed and computing. It reads more like the name of a feature than of a technique, and it usually follows verbs such as enable, use or disable.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A climbing technique of bridging between two holds with the hands or feet, pushing against each in opposing directions to brace oneself in position.

   The corner pitch demanded careful stemming between two near-vertical faces.

   He relied on stemming to bridge the chimney where there were no footholds.

   Similarbridging

   Note

   In stemming, the climber's own body becomes the brace. Each limb pushes outward against its own surface, and the opposing pressures hold the body in place. The technique belongs to corners and chimneys, where a single wall offers nothing to stand on. Climbers use the word both for the skill (good stemming) and for a stretch of rock that demands it (a section of stemming).

5. 5
   noununcountable

   Forward movement made against a water current, especially against the flow of a tide.

   Hours of stemming the flood tide left the crew exhausted.

   Her steady stemming against the river's flow kept the vessel off the rocks.

   Note

   A sailor's word, and its image is the ship's stem, the bow, pointed straight into the flow. The noun names the work the old verb describes: driving the stem against a current and making headway anyway. Its pairing with tides explains the figurative phrase stem the tide. Holding back a flood of complaints borrows the picture of a vessel forcing its way against the water.

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