stern
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
The tail of an animal.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sturnIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈstɝn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
A bird, the black tern, seabird.
nautical
The rear part (after end) of a ship or other vessel.
The hinder part of anything.
figurative
The post of management or direction.
adjective
Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
Grim and forbidding in appearance.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
Used this way, stern is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- poop , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- bottom , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- quarter , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use stern
- “The captain gave a stern warning about the rough seas ahead.”
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Synonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.