stema

Stema is a term with no single, universally recognized meaning in English. Depending on language and domain, it may refer to a proper noun used in company or place names, a transliteration variant in scholarly writing, or simply a word encountered in branding and media. Because of this ambiguity, the intended sense of stema must be inferred from context.

In textual criticism, the related term stemma codicum is used to describe a diagram or tree showing the inferred relationships among manuscripts. In some non-English sources, stema can appear as a spelling variant or transliteration of stemma, though stemma is the standard form in English-language scholarship.

As a proper noun, Stema appears as an identifier for organizations, brands, or geographic entities in different countries. In such uses, the meaning of stema is defined by the entity itself rather than by linguistic rules.

Because stema has no single accepted definition, readers should rely on surrounding information to determine its intended sense. See also stemma for related concept.