Meaning
To halt or slow the advance of something harmful that keeps growing and spreading, such as violence, debt, rumours or job losses. The thing being resisted is usually described as a tide of something, and success is only ever partial or temporary. Formal, journalistic register, typically used about large-scale social problems; it connotes a struggle against something overwhelming. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Here 'stem' is an old verb meaning to stop up or dam a flow - from Old Norse stemma, attested in English by the mid-14th century for checking the flow of liquids and, later, of speech - so the phrase originally meant literally 'hold back the tide'. Etymonline states plainly that the idiom belongs to that verb and is 'often confused' with a different, nautical verb stem meaning 'to make headway against' a current, first attested in the 1590s; the popular explanation that the phrase comes from ships battling an adverse tide is therefore a mix-up of two unrelated verbs, and neither verb has any connection with the stem of a plant. In modern use the stopping sense is what the phrase actually conveys, whatever speakers assume about its derivation.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- stem the flood
- stem the flow
- stem the tide of
- stemming the tide
Usage Examples
- Higher parking charges failed to stem the tide of cars entering the old town each morning.
- Volunteers handing out clean needles helped stem the tide of infections in the district.
- Critics said the new law would do little to stem the tide of counterfeit goods reaching the port.