return vs stem

return

noun
  • The continuation in a different direction, most often at a right angle, of a building, face of a building, or any member, such as a moulding; applied to the shorter in contradistinction to the longer. 

  • The act of relinquishing control to the calling procedure. 

  • An answer. 

  • A return value: the data passed back from a called procedure. 

  • A return pipe, returning fluid to a boiler or other central plant (compare with flow pipe, which carries liquid away from a central plant). 

  • The act of catching a ball after a punt and running it back towards the opposing team. 

  • A return ticket. 

  • An item that is returned, e.g. due to a defect, or the act of returning it. 

  • An account, or formal report, of an action performed, of a duty discharged, of facts or statistics, etc.; especially, in the plural, a set of tabulated statistics prepared for general information. 

  • Gain or loss from an investment. 

  • A report of income submitted to a government for purposes of specifying exact tax payment amounts; a tax return. 

  • A throw from a fielder to the wicket-keeper or to another fielder at the wicket. 

  • A carriage return character. 

  • The act of returning. 

  • A short perpendicular extension of a desk, usually slightly lower. 

verb
  • To elect according to the official report of the election officers. 

  • To recur; to come again. 

  • To throw a ball back to the wicket-keeper (or a fielder at that position) from somewhere in the field. 

  • To come or go back (to a place or person). 

  • To give in requital or recompense; to requite. 

  • To give something back to its original holder or owner. 

  • To report, or bring back and make known. 

  • To go back in thought, narration, or argument. 

  • To place or put back something where it had been. 

  • To bat the ball back over the net in response to a serve. 

  • To play a card as a result of another player's lead. 

  • To pass (data) back to the calling procedure. 

  • To say in reply; to respond. 

  • To take back something to a vendor for a complete or partial refund. 

  • To relinquish control to the calling procedure. 

stem

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

  • 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. 

  • 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. 

  • 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 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 return and stem occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )