stamme

Stam is a Dutch term with several related meanings, all linked by the idea of a central base or main component. In everyday language it appears in different domains, sometimes referring to a plant’s main axis, sometimes to a base form from which other forms grow, and in social or historical contexts to a lineage or group.

In botany, stam refers to the stem of a plant or tree, the part that supports leaves, flowers, and fruit and transports water and nutrients between roots and shoots. The stem can be woody or herbaceous and varies in thickness, texture, and height. It is distinct from the root that anchors the plant and from branches that split off toward the ends.

In linguistics and morphology, the term stam (often discussed as woordstam) denotes the base or stem of a word—the form to which prefixes, suffixes, or inflectional endings are added. The stam represents the core meaning or grammatical category from which related words are derived.

In biology and historical taxonomy, stam is the traditional Dutch term for a higher rank in the classification of living organisms, roughly equivalent to the English phylum. Modern usage in Dutch increasingly prefers fylogenetische or fylenum terms, but stam remains encountered in older texts and some contexts.

In anthropology and ethnology, stam can mean a tribe or clan—a social group sharing a sense of lineage, language, or customs. Related terms include stamboom (family tree) and afstamming (ancestry).

As a verb, stammen means to originate or derive from. Common phrases express origins, such as “stammen uit” (to originate from) and “afstammen van” (to be descended from).