1. (botany) the usually underground organ that lacks buds or leaves or nodes; absorbs water and mineral salts; usually it anchors the plant to the ground
2. (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed;
"thematic vowels are part of the stem"
3. the place where something begins, where it springs into being;
"the Italian beginning of the Renaissance"
"Jupiter was the origin of the radiation"
"Pittsburgh is the source of the Ohio River"
"communism's Russian root"
4. a number that when multiplied by itself some number of times equals a given number
5. the set of values that give a true statement when substituted into an equation
6. someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)
7. a simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes
8. the part of a tooth that is embedded in the jaw and serves as support