stele
[stee-lee, steel for 1–3; steel, stee-lee for 4]
- an upright stone slab or pillar bearing an inscription or design and serving as a monument, marker, or the like.
- Architecture. a prepared surface on the face of a building, a rock, etc., bearing an inscription or the like.
- (in ancient Rome) a burial stone.
- Botany. the central cylinder or cylinders of vascular and related tissue in the stem, root, petiole, leaf, etc., of the higher plants.
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Also stela (for defs 1–3).
Origin of stele
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words for stele
ceremony, tombstone, statue, remembrance, headstone, plaque, mausoleum, stone, tablet, masterpiece, slab, pillar, testament, shrine, tomb, tribute, gravestone, marker, stele, monumentExamples from the Web for stele
Historical Examples of stele
The seuenthe (eighth), to stele nor depryue no mannes goodes by thefte.
Shakespeare Jest-Books;Unknown
The Aristion stele may be taken as an example of the second order.
Here there was formerly an altar; and a stele of Thtmosis IV.
Of the 282 laws once carved upon the stele, all are still legible.
On another, a later Egyptian stele, the tree of life is the sycamore.
Byways of Ghost-LandElliott O'Donnell
stele
- an upright stone slab or column decorated with figures or inscriptions, common in prehistoric times
- a prepared vertical surface that has a commemorative inscription or design, esp one on the face of a building
- the conducting tissue of the stems and roots of plants, which is in the form of a cylinder, principally containing xylem, phloem, and pericycleSee also protostele, siphonostele
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Also called (for senses 1, 2): stela (ˈstiːlə)
Word Origin for stele
C19: from Greek stēlē; related to Greek histanai to stand, Latin stāre
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for stele
"upright slab," usually inscribed, 1820, from Greek stele "standing block, slab," from PIE root *stel- "to put, stand" (see stall (n.1)).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
stele
[stēl, stē′lē]
- The central core of primary vascular tissues in the stem or root of a vascular plant, consisting of xylem and phloem together with pith.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
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