stern

I

adj

1. strict, demanding, exacting, stringent, critical, unsparing, unremitting, rigid, harsh, severe, rigorous, hard; firm, steadfast, determined, resolute, resolved; uncompromising, adamant, relentless, unrelenting, inflexible, immovable, obdurate, recalcitrant, unyielding, hardlined, inexorable, implacable, unbending, flinty; obstinate, stubborn, willful; unsympathetic, unfeeling, hard-hearted, hard-boiled, ruthless, pitiless, unkind, unmerciful, inclement, coldblooded, cold, cruel.

2. overbearing, coercive, ironhanded, ironfisted, dictatorial, imperious, peremptory, tyrannical, despotic, autocratic; excessive, extreme, drastic, Draconian, exigent, extortionate, arbitrary, unreasonable.

3. austere, stark, grave, sober, somber; stiff, ascetic, Spartan, strait-laced, puritanical; sour, vinegary, acetous; grim, forbidding, dour, gaunt, frowning, saturnine, gloomy, taciturn; fierce, rough, craggy; ungentle, gruff, churlish, crabbed, surly, rude, crusty; brusque, short, curt, blunt, bluff.

4. formidable, laborious, rugged, toilsome, difficult, burdensome, Herculean, operose; irksome, distressing, painful, afflictive.

5. sharp, biting, piercing, trenchant, acrid, stinging, acerbic, caustic, mordant, cutting, virulent, bitter, venomous.

II

n

1.(both of a ship) afterpart, poop; rear, back, tail, end, heel, caboose.

2.Informal.See buttocks.

3. from stem to stern

fore and aft, from head to foot or toe, from head to tail, from top to bottom, from cover to cover, from A to Z, Brit. from A to Zed; completely, totally, all the way through, throughout; comprehensively, thoroughly, backward and forward, inside out, from the ground up, soundly, solidly.