stele
Americannoun
plural
stelai, steles-
an upright stone slab or pillar bearing an inscription or design and serving as a monument, marker, or the like.
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Architecture. a prepared surface on the face of a building, a rock, etc., bearing an inscription or the like.
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(in ancient Rome) a burial stone.
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Botany. the central cylinder or cylinders of vascular and related tissue in the stem, root, petiole, leaf, etc., of the higher plants.
noun
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an upright stone slab or column decorated with figures or inscriptions, common in prehistoric times
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a prepared vertical surface that has a commemorative inscription or design, esp one on the face of a building
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the conducting tissue of the stems and roots of plants, which is in the form of a cylinder, principally containing xylem, phloem, and pericycle See also protostele siphonostele
Other Word Forms
- stelar adjective
Etymology
Origin of stele
First recorded in 1810–20; from Greek stḗlē, akin to histánai “to make stand,” Latin stāre “to stand”; stand
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.
The room’s most impressive object is a 5th century BC carved marble stele, 8 feet tall.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 11, 2025
The stele was handed over to the Turkish ambassador to Italy for return to Turkey.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 28, 2023
In 1891 a French archaeological team uncovered a stone stele near the village of Sambor on the banks of the Mekong River, in what was then French Indochina, later to become Cambodia/Kampuchea.
From Scientific American • Jul. 28, 2022
In dicot roots, the xylem and phloem of the stele are arranged alternately in an X shape, whereas in monocot roots, the vascular tissue is arranged in a ring around the pith.
From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022
He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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.
