from stem to stern
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
From one end to the other, completely and thoroughly
Literally: the front and back of a ship
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
At that moment Lord Jim was disturbed, from stem to stern, by an unmistakeable lurch.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “from stem to stern” mean?
From one end to the other, completely and thoroughly Literally: the front and back of a ship
Is “from stem to stern” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.