- a variation of stele.
stela
Americannoun
-
stelae
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Vocabulary lists containing stela
Aztec, Maya, and Inca Empires - Introductory
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Aztec, Maya, and Inca Empires - Middle School and High School
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
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:
The evidence for another forgotten ruler comes from a stela discovered in 1894 at Tell 'Abta, Iraq.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
Not only have times significantly changed but, in the great Ford outdoors, a stela from a Theosophical Society pilgrimage played a century ago could easily be imagined buried on the hillside.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2022
Christa Schieber de Lavarreda, the site’s archaeological director, points to a flat stone, considered an altar, found face-up just a few feet away, which archaeologists think was installed at the same time as the stela.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 1, 2022
The nearly one-ton stela, experts determined, had come from a temple dedicated to the Greek-Egyptian King Ptolemy V in 196 B.C.
From New York Times ● Oct. 19, 2021
This supervision, recorded on a stela erected seventy years afterward, is the first known example in Yucatan of a Mesoamerican specialty: the chaperoned coronation.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Though concentrated, it’s situated among newly refreshed spaces containing lavishly ornamented mummy coffins, carved grave stelae, canopic jars, tomb wall reliefs and the preserved body of a woman named Gautseshenu.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
In a historic agreement with the Republic of Yemen, the museum will research and temporarily care for the funerary stelae.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2023
Sixty-five of the artifacts are funerary stelae — stone slabs featuring carved heads — traced to the second half of the first millennium B.C. in northwest Yemen.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 21, 2023
So far, they have recorded more than 19,000 Maya artifacts, including stelae, monuments, and house foundations, and more than 160 burials.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 18, 2022
What is certain is that the site was vacated and the stelae defaced and the sculptures decapitated.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
