stanch
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to stop the flow of (a liquid, especially blood).
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to stop the flow of blood or other liquid from (a wound, leak, etc.).
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Archaic. to check, allay, or extinguish.
verb (used without object)
noun
adjective
verb
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to stem the flow of (a liquid, esp blood) or (of a liquid) to stop flowing
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to prevent the flow of a liquid, esp blood, from (a hole, wound, etc)
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an archaic word for assuage
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of stanch
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English stanchen, staunchen (verb) < Old French estanchier “to close, stop, slake (thirst),” from Vulgar Latin stanticāre (unattested), equivalent to Latin stant- (stem of stāns, present participle of stāre to stand ) + -icāre causative suffix
Explanation
Use the verb stanch to describe stopping a liquid from spreading. A bandage can stanch bleeding and thick towels can stanch the flow of water across the kitchen floor when you drop a full glass of water. The vowel sound in stanch most frequently sounds like on: "stonch." Stanch can also be pronounced to rhyme with branch. Though it's a verb mostly commonly associated with keeping blood from flowing from a wound, the origin is likely the Latin word stagnum, meaning "pond, pool." This word is related to stagnate, describing water that has no movement.
Vocabulary lists containing stanch
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He wrapped the leg to stanch the bleeding.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
But that is unlikely to stanch the escalating scrutiny of its business practices in France.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2025
Parentez said Martinez drove herself to a nearby auto shop, where employees used shop towels to stanch her wounds until paramedics arrived.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2025
She tried to stanch the flow with blankets, sheets and pillows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2024
Horse crouched protectively over Doc, who tried to stanch his wound.
From "The Reader" by Traci Chee
"They could not have a stancher or prettier champion, my dear," said a gray-haired man who sat near me.
From The Mistress of Bonaventure by Bindloss, Harold
Among all Miss Russell's thirty pupils you could not have found two stancher friends than Lindsay Hepburn and Cicely Chalmers, both of whom were members of the third, or lowest, class.
From The Manor House School by Dixon, Arthur A.
And never had Duane bestrode a gamer, swifter, stancher beast.
From The Lone Star Ranger, a romance of the border by Grey, Zane
I made some stanch friends in those days, but never a stancher, truer one than Dicky Graham.
From Revelations of a Wife The Story of a Honeymoon by Garrison, Adele
"And I have youth and mining experience and the inside track, as well as stancher friends than he ever dreamed of," laughed Ridgway, clapping the other on the back.
From Ridgway of Montana (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) by Raine, William MacLeod
Even Willkie's stanchest supporters here concede that he would have trouble winning the nomination again.
From Time Magazine Archive
Perfectly representative of the club's spirit are the well-known lines of one of their stanchest and most sentimental members, the late Don Marquis: A Certain Club Ah, dead and done!
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week the President also: > Was host to Ecuador's firm, friendly President Carlos Alberto Arroyo del Rio, one of the Americas' stanchest Good Neighbors.
From Time Magazine Archive
Soon afterward the two men met, and ever since Carter Glass and Jesse Jones have been the stanchest of friends, the warmest of mutual admirers.
From Time Magazine Archive
We can imagine, however, that the stanchest woman's-right lady should cry for her lost lover.
From The Landleaguers by Trollope, Anthony
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
