base vs stem

base

noun
  • The end of a leaf, petal or similar organ where it is attached to its support. 

  • A basic but essential component or ingredient. 

  • Foundation: a cosmetic cream to make the face appear uniform. 

  • A topological space, looked at in relation to one of its covering spaces, fibrations, or bundles. 

  • The smallest kind of cannon. 

  • A line in a survey which, being accurately determined in length and position, serves as the origin from which to compute the distances and positions of any points or objects connected with it by a system of triangles. 

  • The forces and relations of production that produce the necessities and amenities of life. 

  • The name of the controlling terminal of a bipolar transistor (BJT). 

  • Something from which other things extend; a foundation. 

  • A safe zone in the children's games of tag and hide-and-go-seek. 

  • The lowest side of a triangle or other polygon, or the lowest face of a cone, pyramid or other polyhedron laid flat. 

  • freebase cocaine 

  • A nucleotide's nucleobase in the context of a DNA or RNA biopolymer. 

  • The starting point of a logical deduction or thought; basis. 

  • In hand-to-hand balance, the person who supports the flyer; the person that remains in contact with the ground. 

  • A group of voters who almost always support a single party's candidates for elected office. 

  • A substance used as a mordant in dyeing. 

  • A material that holds paint or other materials together; a binder. 

  • A number raised to the power of an exponent. 

  • A supporting, lower or bottom component of a structure or object. 

  • Any of a class of generally water-soluble compounds, having bitter taste, that turn red litmus blue, and react with acids to form salts. 

  • A kind of skirt (often of velvet or brocade, but sometimes of mail or other armour) which hung from the middle to about the knees, or lower. 

  • A sequence of elements not jointly stabilized by any nontrivial group element. 

  • The lowermost part of a column, between the shaft and the pedestal or pavement. 

  • A morpheme (or morphemes) that serves as a basic foundation on which affixes can be attached. 

  • Synonym of radix. 

  • The game of prisoners' bars. 

  • The lowest third of a shield or escutcheon. 

  • The lower part of the field. See escutcheon. 

  • The place where decisions for an organization are made; headquarters. 

  • A permanent structure for housing military personnel and material. 

  • One of the four places that a runner can stand without being subject to being tagged out when the ball is in play. 

  • The set of sets from which a topology is generated. 

verb
  • To be located (at a particular place). 

  • To act as a base; to be the person supporting the flyer. 

  • To give as its foundation or starting point; to lay the foundation of. 

  • To freebase. 

adj
  • Low in place or position. 

  • Morally reprehensible, immoral; cowardly. 

  • Not held by honourable service. 

  • Not considered precious or noble. 

  • Not classical or correct. 

  • Alloyed with inferior metal; debased. 

stem

noun
  • The above-ground stalk (technically axis) of a vascular plant, and certain anatomically similar, below-ground organs such as rhizomes, bulbs, tubers, and corms. 

  • A lesbian, chiefly African-American, exhibiting both stud and femme traits. 

  • A branch of a family. 

  • A component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the bicycle fork. 

  • The penis. 

  • A slender supporting member of an individual part of a plant such as a flower or a leaf; also, by analogy, the shaft of a feather. 

  • A premixed portion of a track for use in audio mastering and remixing. 

  • A person's leg. 

  • The vertical or nearly vertical forward extension of the keel, to which the forward ends of the planks or strakes are attached. 

  • A vertical stroke marking the length of a note in written music. 

  • A narrow part on certain man-made objects, such as a wine glass, a tobacco pipe, a spoon. 

  • A part of an anatomic structure considered without its possible branches or ramifications. 

  • A winder on a clock, watch, or similar mechanism. 

  • The stock of a family; a race or generation of progenitors. 

  • A vertical stroke of a letter. 

  • A crack pipe; or the long, hollow portion of a similar pipe (i.e. meth pipe) resembling a crack pipe. 

  • The main part of an uninflected word to which affixes may be added to form inflections of the word. A stem often has a more fundamental root. Systematic conjugations and declensions derive from their stems. 

  • An advanced or leading position; the lookout. 

verb
  • To direct the stem (of a ship) against; to make headway against. 

  • To ram (clay, etc.) into a blasting hole. 

  • To move the feet apart and point the tips of the skis inward in order to slow down the speed or to facilitate a turn. 

  • To be caused or derived; to originate. 

  • To stop, hinder (for instance, a river or blood). 

  • To descend in a family line. 

  • To remove the stem from. 

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