"stem-winder" meaning in English

See stem-winder in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: stem-winders [plural]
Etymology: US, mid-late 19th century, originally referring to then-recent stem-wind watches (invented in 1840s, commercialized initially 1850s by Patek Philippe & Co.). These were expensive, top-notch watches, hence generalized (1892) to “top-notch”, particularly applied to speeches, or to the orator in question. Non-speech senses later fell out of use. Nuance of “rousing” speech possibly by analogy with watch being wound up (“tighten by winding, excite, rouse”). Circa 2000, later sense of “interminable speech” a folk etymology, in sense “a speech that lasts so long one must wind one’s watch”. Etymology templates: {{m|en|wound up||tighten by winding, excite, rouse}} wound up (“tighten by winding, excite, rouse”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} stem-winder (plural stem-winders)
  1. A watch that is wound up by turning a small knob (at the stem).
    Sense id: en-stem-winder-en-noun-pFOX8M~p Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 41 10 9 12 27
  2. (US) A rousing speech, especially by a politician. Tags: US
    Sense id: en-stem-winder-en-noun-Rg09frhu Categories (other): American English
  3. (US) Someone who gives such speeches; a great orator. Tags: US
    Sense id: en-stem-winder-en-noun-cQZYeQHZ Categories (other): American English
  4. (US, proscribed) A boring, interminable speech. Tags: US, proscribed
    Sense id: en-stem-winder-en-noun-5rV2vdZZ Categories (other): American English
  5. (US, obsolete) Something top-notch or first-rate. Tags: US, obsolete
    Sense id: en-stem-winder-en-noun-lu73GT85 Categories (other): American English
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: rabblerousing, tubthumping

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for stem-winder meaning in English (3.2kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "wound up",
        "3": "",
        "4": "tighten by winding, excite, rouse"
      },
      "expansion": "wound up (“tighten by winding, excite, rouse”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "US, mid-late 19th century, originally referring to then-recent stem-wind watches (invented in 1840s, commercialized initially 1850s by Patek Philippe & Co.). These were expensive, top-notch watches, hence generalized (1892) to “top-notch”, particularly applied to speeches, or to the orator in question. Non-speech senses later fell out of use. Nuance of “rousing” speech possibly by analogy with watch being wound up (“tighten by winding, excite, rouse”).\nCirca 2000, later sense of “interminable speech” a folk etymology, in sense “a speech that lasts so long one must wind one’s watch”.",
  "forms": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "word": "rabblerousing"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
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          "_dis": "41 10 9 12 27",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A watch that is wound up by turning a small knob (at the stem)."
      ],
      "id": "en-stem-winder-en-noun-pFOX8M~p",
      "links": [
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      "glosses": [
        "A rousing speech, especially by a politician."
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      "id": "en-stem-winder-en-noun-Rg09frhu",
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        "(US) A rousing speech, especially by a politician."
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      "glosses": [
        "Someone who gives such speeches; a great orator."
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        "(US) Someone who gives such speeches; a great orator."
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        {
          "ref": "2000, Bill Schneider and Keating Holland, “What to look for Thursday at the Democratic National Convention”, August 17, 2000, CNN, “Clinton comparisons”",
          "text": "Or – heaven forbid – the Bill Clinton of 1988, who gave a tedious stemwinder in 1988 that has gone down in the books as the worst nominating speech in recent memory?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A boring, interminable speech."
      ],
      "id": "en-stem-winder-en-noun-5rV2vdZZ",
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        "(US, proscribed) A boring, interminable speech."
      ],
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      "glosses": [
        "Something top-notch or first-rate."
      ],
      "id": "en-stem-winder-en-noun-lu73GT85",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, obsolete) Something top-notch or first-rate."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Patek Philippe & Co."
  ],
  "word": "stem-winder"
}
{
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  ],
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  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
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      "word": "rabblerousing"
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    {
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    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A watch that is wound up by turning a small knob (at the stem)."
      ],
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          "wound up"
        ],
        [
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          "knob"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A rousing speech, especially by a politician."
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        "(US) A rousing speech, especially by a politician."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
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      "categories": [
        "American English"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who gives such speeches; a great orator."
      ],
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          "orator"
        ]
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        "(US) Someone who gives such speeches; a great orator."
      ],
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        "US"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000, Bill Schneider and Keating Holland, “What to look for Thursday at the Democratic National Convention”, August 17, 2000, CNN, “Clinton comparisons”",
          "text": "Or – heaven forbid – the Bill Clinton of 1988, who gave a tedious stemwinder in 1988 that has gone down in the books as the worst nominating speech in recent memory?"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A boring, interminable speech."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, proscribed) A boring, interminable speech."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "proscribed"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English terms with obsolete senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Something top-notch or first-rate."
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        "(US, obsolete) Something top-notch or first-rate."
      ],
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        "obsolete"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Patek Philippe & Co."
  ],
  "word": "stem-winder"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.