Pl. stamens; also (now rarely) stamina. [a. L. stāmen, neut. (pl. stāmina) the warp in the upright loom of the ancients (L. & Sh.), a thread of the warp, a thread or fiber in general, also (Pliny) applied to the stamens of the lily; corresponding formally to Gr. στήμων masc. warp, στῆμα neut., some part of a plant (Hesychius), Goth. stōma wk. masc., Skr. sthāman station, place, also strength:Indogermanic *st(h)āmon-, -en-, f. *st(h)ā- to STAND. Cf. It. stame, F. étamine (1690 in Hatz.-Darm.; repr. L. pl. stamina), Sp. estambre, Pg. estame.]
ǁ 1. The warp of a textile fabric. Also transf. Obs. rare.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, II. VI. i. 190. As in a web, the stamen, or Warp, is fast fixed, through which the woofe is cast, or woven.
1681. Grew, Musæum, I. § 1. i. 6. Those whitest Fibers which make the stamen or warp of every Muscule.
† 2. a. The thread spun by the Fates at a persons birth, on the length of which the duration of his life was supposed to depend. Hence, in popular physiology, the measure of vital impulse or capacity which it was supposed that each person possessed at birth, and on which the length of his life, unless cut short by violence or disease, was supposed to depend. b. The supposed germinal principle or impulse in which the future characteristics of any nascent existence are implicit. c. The fundamental or essential element of a thing. Obs. Cf. STAMINA.
a. 1701. C. Wolley, Jrnl. New York (1860), 26. I my self, a person seemingly of a weakly Stamen and a valetudinary Constitution.
1709. Tatler, No. 15, ¶ 1. All, who enter into human life, have a certain date or Stamen given to their being, which they only who die of age may be said to have arrived at.
a. 1745. J. Richardson, Note on Miltons Lycidas, 75. Of the three fatal sisters the first prepard the flax upon the distaff, the stamen of human life.
1753. L. M., trans. Du Boscqs Accompl. Woman, I. 246. Bad example hath not less influence upon education than a bad stamen upon the constitution.
b. 1718. J. Chamberlayne, Relig. Philos., I. xvi. § 9. 306. All the Great Naturalists of this Age have been convinced that the Beginning of all Creatures consist in a Stamen.
1725. J. Reynolds, View of Death (1735), 15, note. Some suppose, that the soul takes away with it the animal spirits, as the stamen, or ground of the vehicle, it is to assume.
c. 1758. Borlase, Nat. Hist. Cornw., 61. Earth is the general food and stamen of all bodies.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 305. Philosophers looked upon water as the elemental matter, or stamen of all things.
3. Bot. The male or fertilizing organ of a flowering plant, consisting of two parts, the anther, which is a double-celled sac containing the pollen, and the filament, a slender footstalk supporting the anther.
Although the L. stamen was applied by Pliny to the stamens of the lily, the technical use of the word in botany app. began with Spigelius (Adriaan van den Spieghel, died 1625), who defines stamina as partes oblongæ tenues veluti capillamenta quæ stylum (partem similiter oblongam sed paulo crassiorem) ambiunt (Isagoge in Rem Herbariam, ed. 1633, I. vi. p. 37).
α. sing.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. vi. 170. [Parts of the flower.] Stamen, tuft.
1764. Berkenhout, Clavis Angl. Bot., s.v., Each Stamen consists of two distinct parts, viz. the Filamentum, and the Anthera.
1845. Lindley, Sch. Bot., i. (1858), 15. The Stamen is one of the parts which stand next the corolla in the inside.
β. plural stamina.
1668. [see STAMINEOUS a.].
1683. Ray, Corr. (1848), 131. A thrum of small flowers, which are vulgarly mistaken for stamina.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., I. iv. (1765), 10. The Stamina are the Male Part of the Flower.
1858. Miss Brightwell, Life Linnæus, 25. His curiosity was excited to a close examination of the stamina and pistils.
1879. J. Grant, in Cassells Techn. Educ., IV. 95/1. He showed that the stamina, or dust-threads, were the male parts of the plants.
γ. plural stamens.
1785. Martyn, trans. Rousseaus Bot., i. 25. Between the pistil and the corol [of a Lily] you find six other bodies called the Stamens.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 470. Class 21. Monoecia. Stamens and Pistils in separate flowers, but both growing on the same individual plant.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs Bot., 791. The stamens of Berberis lose their irritability in vacuo.
b. Comb.
1821. S. F. Gray, Brit. Plants, I. 159. Gynophore . Stamen-bearing, supporting the stamens also.
1829. T. Castle, Introd. Bot., 170. The barren or stamen-bearing flowers.
1877. Huxley & Martin, Elem. Biol., 84. The union of the filaments for three-fourths of their length to form the stamen-tube.