different between stern vs caustic

English

Alternative forms

• sterne (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: stûrn, IPA^(key): /st?n/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: stûn, IPA^(key): /st??n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)n

Etymology 1

From Middle English stern, sterne, sturne, from Old English styrne (“stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel”), from Proto-Germanic *sturnijaz (“angry, astonished, shocked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with Scots stern (“bold, courageous, fierce, resolute”), Old High German storn?n (“to be astonished”), Dutch stuurs (“glum, austere”), Swedish stursk (“insolent”).

Adjective

stern (comparative sterner, superlative sternest)

1. Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
   • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
2. Grim and forbidding in appearance.
   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion

     these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

Translations

Etymology 2

Most likely from Old Norse stjórn (“control, steering”), related to stýra (“to steer”), from Proto-Germanic *stiurijan?, whence also English steer. Also possibly from Old Frisian stiarne (“rudder”), from the same Germanic root.

Noun

stern (plural sterns)

1. (nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
2. (figuratively) The post of management or direction.
3. The hinder part of anything.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

4. The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.

Synonyms

• (of a ship): poop

Antonyms

• bow

Derived terms

• from stem to stern
• sternpost

Translations

See also

• keel
• aft

Etymology 3

From a variant of tern.

Noun

stern (plural sterns)

1. A bird, the black tern.

Translations

Anagrams

• 'rents, Ernst, Snert, nerts, rents, snert, terns

Dutch

Etymology

Possibly cognate with Latin sturnus (“starling”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?r/
• Rhymes: -?r

Noun

stern m (plural sterns or sternen, diminutive sterntje n)

1. tern

Middle English

Noun

stern

1. Alternative form of sterne

Mòcheno

Etymology

From Middle High German stërne, stërre, stërn, from Old High German sterno, from Proto-Germanic *stern?, from Proto-Indo-European *h?st?r (“star”). Cognate with German Stern, English star.

Noun

stern m

1. star

References

• Anthony R. Rowley, Liacht as de sproch: Grammatica della lingua mòchena Deutsch-Fersentalerisch, TEMI, 2003.

Piedmontese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?r?/

Noun

stern m

1. breastbone

English

Etymology

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from the Ancient Greek ????????? (kaustikós, “burning”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: kôs't?k, k?s't?k, IPA^(key): /?k??st?k/, /?k?st?k/
• Rhymes: -??st?k

Adjective

caustic (comparative more caustic, superlative most caustic)

1. Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
2. (of language, etc.) Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
   • 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette

     Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical

   • c. 1930, W.H.Auden, "The Quest"

     though he came too late / To join the martyrs, there was still a place / Among the tempters for a caustic tongue / / To test the resolution of the young / With tales of the small failings of the great

Synonyms

• (capable of destroying tissue): acidic, biting, burning, corrosive, searing
• (severe, sharp): bitchy, biting, catty, mordacious, nasty, sarcastic, scathing, sharp, spiteful, vitriolic

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

caustic (plural caustics)

1. Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
2. (optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
3. (mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
4. (informal, chemistry) Caustic soda.

Derived terms

• lunar caustic

Translations