Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Severe, strict, or harsh in nature or manner: Describing someone who is very serious, demanding, and not lenient, often in a way that inspires respect or fear.
   • Forbidding or austere in appearance: Describing something that looks severe, plain, and without ornament or warmth.

2. Noun:

   • The rear part of a ship or boat: The back section of a vessel.
   • (Informal) The buttocks: The fleshy part of the body on which a person sits.

Examples of Usage

• Adjective:

  • The teacher had a stern expression that silenced the class.
  • He was raised under stern discipline.
  • The judge issued a stern warning to the defendant.

• Noun:

  • The crew gathered at the stern of the ship to watch the sunset.
  • (Informal) He fell right on his stern.

Advanced Usage

• "The sterner sex": An old-fashioned or literary term for men, implying qualities like strength, seriousness, or strictness.

  • In those days, it was thought that politics was the business of the sterner sex.

• "Stern-faced": Having a severe or unsmiling facial expression.

  • The stern-faced guard allowed no one to pass.

Variants and Related Words

• Sternly (adverb): In a severe, strict, or harsh manner.
  • She spoke sternly to the children about the dangers.
• Sternness (noun): The quality of being stern.
  • His sternness was legendary in the office.

Synonyms

• Adjective: Strict, severe, harsh, austere, grim, unyielding, forbidding.
• Noun (ship): Aft, rear, poop.
• Noun (informal): Buttocks, rear, behind, seat.

Related Phrases

• From stem to stern: From the front to the back of a ship; used figuratively to mean "completely" or "thoroughly."
  • They searched the vessel from stem to stern.
  • The house was renovated from stem to stern.

Related Idioms

• A stern chase is a long chase: (Nautical idiom) Meaning that when one ship is directly behind another, it is difficult to catch up, as both are moving in the same direction at similar speeds. Used more broadly to describe any prolonged and difficult pursuit.
  • Catching the market leader proved to be a stern chase for the new company.

Adjective

1. severely simple
   • a stark interior
2. severe and unremitting in making demands
   • an exacting instructor
   • a stern disciplinarian
   • strict standards
3. not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty
   • grim determination
   • grim necessity
   • Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty
   • relentless persecution
   • the stern demands of parenthood
4. of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect
   • an austere expression
   • a stern face

Noun

1. the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on
   • he deserves a good kick in the butt
   • are you going to sit on your fanny and do nothing?
2. United States concert violinist (born in Russia in 1920)
3. the rear part of a ship