medial vs stern

medial

noun
  • Any of various things that occur in the middle. 

  • One or more letters that occur in the middle of a word. 

adj
  • Of or pertaining to the media and/or the areas of the wing next to it. 

  • Pertaining to the inside; closer to the median plane of the body or the midline of an organ. 

  • (of a speech sound) In the middle of a word. 

  • Closer to the addressee. 

  • Of or pertaining to a mean or average. 

  • Pertaining to the middle layer of a blood vessel, to its tunica media. 

  • (of a consonant) Central: produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. 

stern

noun
  • The hinder part of anything. 

  • A bird, the black tern. 

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

  • The post of management or direction. 

  • The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel. 

adj
  • Grim and forbidding in appearance. 

  • Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner. 

verb
  • To propel or move backward or stern-first in the water. 

How often have the words medial and stern occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )