Antiq. [As a disyllable, repr. Gr. στήλη standing block or slab, f. Indogermanic root *stā- to stand. As a monosyllable, anglicized form of the Gr. word; cf. F. stèle.
It is not always possible to decide which of the two pronunciations was intended by a writer using the word. The form stele is generally preferred for the singular, and stelæ (which belongs formally to stela) in the plural.]
1. An upright slab bearing sculptured designs or inscriptions. Sometimes loosely applied to any prepared surface on the face of a building, a rock, etc., covered with an inscription.
1820. T. S. Hughes, Trav. Sicily, I. x. 303. A superior class of members … had their names inscribed upon a marble stélé or column.
1825. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq., 70. It appears, that when any one of the family died, a stelè to his memory was added to the tomb.
1833. Sir H. Ellis, Elgin Marbles (1846), II. 169. A large sepulchral stele.
1847. Leitch, trans. C. O. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 224. 193. In Egypt they [obelisks] belonged to the class of steles (commemorative pillars).
1873. Contemp. Rev., XXI. 568. With inscriptions either on steles or columns, or on tablets.
1877. Miss A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, vi. 143. Two large hieroglyphed steles incised upon the face of a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff.
1882. Cheyne, Isaiah, xvi. 12, note. The Stele of Mesha … was found in a depression between the two hillocks.
1884. A. Lang, Custom & Myth, 285. The Australian stele, or grave-pillar.
b. Arch. (See quot.)
a. 1840. Hosking, Archit., in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), III. 470. Stele. The ornaments on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to the antefixæ on the summit of the flank entablatures, are thus designated.
2. Bot. The axial cylinder in the stems and roots of vascular plants, developed from the plerome.
1895. [see TETRARCH sb.2].
1898. H. C. Porter, trans. Strasburger, etc. Text-bk. Bot., 109. The so-called central cylinder, for which Van Tieghem has proposed the name stele (column).
