stele

plural steles · plural stelai · alternative stélé · alternative stelè

1. archaeologyAn upright (or formerly upright) slab containing engraved or painted decorations or inscriptions; a stela.

   The Australian stele, or grave-pillar.

   1884, A. Lang, Custom & Myth, section 285

   3 more examples

   A superior class of members...had their names inscribed upon a marble stélé or column.

   1820, T. S. Hughes, Trav. Sicily, I x 303

   It appears, that when any one of the family died, a stelè to his memory was added to the tomb.

   1825, T. D. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq., I v 70

   In Egypt [obelisks] belonged to the class of steles (commemorative pillars).

   1847, C. O. Müller, translated by J. Leitch, Anc. Art, §224 193

2. uncommonarchaeologyAny carved or engraved surface.

   Two large hieroglyphed steles incised upon the face of a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff.

   1877, A. B. Edwards, Thousand Miles up Nile, VI 143

3. obsoletearchaeologyAn acroterion, the decoration on the ridge of an ancient Greek building such as a temple.

   Stele. The ornaments on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to the antefixæ on the summit of the flank entablatures, are thus designated.

   c. 1840, Hosking, "Architecture" in Encyclopædia Britannica, III 470

plural steles

1. biologyThe central core of a plant's root and stem system, especially including the vascular tissue and developed from the plerome.

   The so-called central cylinder, for which Van Tieghem has proposed the name stele (column).

   1898, Eduard Strasburger et al., translated by Hobart Charles Porter, A Text-book of Botany, section 109

   1 more example

   The stele may have—in different structures—one to many protoxylem (primitive wood) groups, and is accordingly described as monarch...diarch...triarch...tetrarch...polyarch.

   1895, Sydney Howard Vines, A Students' Text-book of Botany, section 179