stalk

Meaning

1. The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.
2. The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
3. Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
4. An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
5. One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
6. A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
7. The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
8. The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
9. An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
10. Informally, a construction which generalizes that of the notion of the ring of germs of functions near a point to the context of arbitrary sheaves. Formally, given a sheaf ℱ on a space X, and a point x in X, the direct limit of the sections of F on the open neighborhoods of x ordered by reverse inclusion. See Stalk (sheaf) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

stem

still hunt

sneak up on

ear of corn

approach stealthily

angry walk

go stealthily

rice plant

sneak up

sneak up to

still-hunt

take by surprise

hunt a spy

put a tail on someone

podetium

trabecula

walk stealthily

stem of a flower

stealthy pursuit

walk stiffly

human foot

invertebrate foot

pes

die shank

upright bar

punch shank

lie in ambush wait

leafstem

drive on

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/stɔːk/

From Middle English stalke, stelke, stalk, perhaps from Old English *stealc, *stielc, *stealuc, from Proto-West Germanic *staluk, *stalik, from Proto-Germanic *stalukaz, *stalikaz, diminutive of Proto-Germanic *stalô, *staluz (“support, stem, stalk”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place, stand; be stiff; stud, post, trunk, stake, stem, stalk”). Cognate with Old High German *stelh in wazzarstelh (“wagtail”), Danish stilk (“stalk, stem”), Swedish stjälk (“stalk, stem”), Icelandic stilkur (“stalk, stem”). Related also to Middle English stale (“ladder upright, stalk”), Old English stalu (“wooden upright”), Middle Low German stal, stale (“chair leg”), Old English stela (“stalk”), Dutch steel (“stalk”), German Stiel (“stalk”), Albanian shtalkë (“crossbeam, board used as a door hinge”), Welsh telm (“frond”), Ancient Greek στειλειή (steileiḗ, “beam”), Old Armenian ստեղն (stełn, “trunk, stalk”).

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