Stele
Origin 1
A parallel etymology to stale ("a handle, shaft, stem"), distinguished via ablaut.
Full definition of stele
Noun
stele
(plural steles)- Obsolete form of stale
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "the Tale of the Wyf of Bathe"...in o purpos stedefastly to dwelle
And nat biwreye thing that men us telle
...that tale is nat worth a rake-stele
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Origin 2
From Ancient Greek στήλη (stēlē, "upright rock; pillar; column"), plural form στῆλαι.
Noun
- (archaeology) An upright (or formerly upright) slab containing engraved or painted decorations or inscriptions; a stela
- 1820, T. S. Hughes, Trav. Sicily, I x 303A superior class of members...had their names inscribed upon a marble stélé or column.
- 1825, T. D. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq., I v 70It appears, that when any one of the family died, a stelè to his memory was added to the tomb.
- 1847, J. Leitch translating C. O. Müller, Anc. Art, §224 193In Egypt obelisks belonged to the class of steles (commemorative pillars).
- 1884, A. Lang, Custom & Myth, 285The Australian stele, or grave-pillar.
- (archaeology, uncommon) Any carved or engraved surface
- 1877, A. B. Edwards, Thousand Miles up Nile, VI 143Two large hieroglyphed steles incised upon the face of a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff.
- (architecture, archaeology, obsolete) An acroterion, the decoration on the ridge of an ancient Greek building such as a temple
- circa 1840, Hosking, "Architecture" in Encyclopædia Britannica, III 470Stele. The ornaments on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to the antefixæ on the summit of the flank entablatures, are thus designated.
Usage notes
Although stela and stele were used in antiquity for pillars and columns generally and continued to carry that meaning when their use was revived in English archaeology and architecture in the 18th and 19th century, respectively, present usage usually distinguishes obelisks, columns, shafts (the body of a column between the capital and the pediment), etc., and uses stela and stele to refer to engraved slabs or small pillars.
Furthermore, although the terms still refer to small pillarlike gravestones from antiquity, the similar-looking herms are now often distinguished, as are modern gravestones, monuments, boundary markers, etc.
The terms do sometimes refer to undecorated rocks when they have been raised by artificial means in prehistoric times, particularly when they are slab-like, but the large Neolithic menhirs are usually distinguished as are Chinese scholar's or Taihu rocks and other modern uses of upright stones as decoration or signage.
Usage notes
Stele is frequently pluralized irregularly as stelae and stelæ, but this is a hypercorrection arising from confusion with the Latin-derived stela. The anglicized Greek plural stelai has been used since the late 19th century but is less common than steles.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Origin 3
From 1886 French stèle, from Ancient Greek στήλη (stēlē, "upright rock; pillar; column").
Noun
stele
(plural steles)- (botany) The central core of a plant's root and stem system, especially including the vascular tissue and developed from the plerome
- 1895, Sydney Howard Vines, A Students' Text-book of Botany, 179The stele may have—in different structures—one to many protoxylem (primitive wood) groups, and is accordingly described as monarch...diarch...triarch...tetrarch...polyarch.
- 1898, Hobart Charles Porter translating Eduard Strasburger & al. A Text-book of Botany, 109The so-called central cylinder, for which Van Tieghem has proposed the name stele (column).