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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > STANCH

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pronounce STANCH:

STONCH
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connect this word to others:

The word stanch might be a close cousin of the two words below. Can you recall them?

1. To st____te is to stay the same or become worse instead of flowing or changing.

2. Something st_____nt has stayed the same or worsened.

Both of those words call to mind a nasty pond full of mosquitoes, where water is standing still instead of flowing. By contrast, the word stanch has a much nicer meaning, often connoting that blood has stopped flowing out.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)  

definition:

The verb "stanch," also spelled "staunch," traces back through Old French to Latin, possibly to the word stagnum, meaning "pool or pond." 

For many centuries in English, we've used "stanch" to mean "to stop the flow of something, often blood."

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the transitive kind: "He stanched the wound;" "She stanched the flow of blood."

Other forms: 

Stanched, stanching.

Sometimes, you'll see the verb "stanch" spelled more like it sounds: "staunch." That's a variant spelling. I recommend sticking with "stanch," as it's more common.

You might be wondering about the adjective "staunch," meaning "firm, fierce," as in "They're his most staunch supporters." It's very closely related to our verb "stanch." Originally, the adjective "staunch" meant "watertight: allowing no flow of liquid." From there it grew to mean "standing strong, firm, fierce."

how to use it:

"Stanch" is a formal, semi-common word. It often sounds positive and powerful.

Pick it when you want to emphasize that while something is literally or figuratively bleeding, someone is doing their best to stop that flow of blood.

You might talk literally about people stanching the blood, or stanching the flow of blood, or stanching wounds.

Or, talk figuratively about people stanching a crisis, a problem, or an out-of-control emotion: stopping it from freely leaking out everywhere, so to speak.

examples:

"The small human bent over the great bear-king, packing in the bloodmoss and freezing the raw flesh till it stopped bleeding. When she had finished, her mittens were sodden with Iorek's blood, but his wounds were stanched." 
— Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass, 2000

"My son, my Raulito. I ached for him even more without Manolito in my arms to stanch the yearning."
— Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies, 1994

has this page helped you understand "stanch"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "stanch" without saying "plug" or "obstruct."

try it out:

Although we usually talk literally about stanching a wound, and stanching blood from a wound, we can also talk about stanching a crisis, which implies that the crisis is like a bleeding wound. Let's try that out.

Fill in the blanks: "(Someone) is trying to stanch the crisis, (taking action of some sort)."

Example 1: "On HGTV, the homeowners keep finding more and more costly problems to fix, and everyone is running around trying to stanch the crisis, burning through the budget and eliminating all the cool things they were going to do to upgrade the house."

Example 2: "Republicans in Congress... [fought] Barack's every effort to stanch the economic crisis, refusing to support measures that would cut taxes and save or create millions of jobs."
— Michelle Obama, Becoming, 2018




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Eddie Izzardisms!"

Consider a quote from Eddie Izzard's delightful stand-up comedy, and decide which of three given terms you can most easily connect it to. You can see my suggested answer by scrolling to the bottom of the issue. But yours doesn't need to match mine. 

Try this one today:

"There's two positions in snowboarding. One is looking cool and the other is DEAD!"

Blight, fraught, or watertight?

review this word:

1. The opposite of STANCH could be

A. JOUNCE: to move along in a heavy, bumping way.
B. SLUICE: to open a floodgate; to let something flow.
C. TRADUCE: to say nasty (often untrue) things about people, which damages their reputation.

2. In the news, you're likely to read about social media companies trying to stanch _____.

A. the "cancer" of bot users and spam accounts
B. the "bleeding" of exiting users and advertisers
C. the "inflammation" of fake news and harmful disinformation




Answers to the review questions:
1. B
2. B

From the game, here's a suggested answer:

I'd go with fraught, because snowboarding would turn me into a very damp ball of stress.


a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


From my blog:
On vocabulary...
      36 ways to study words.
      Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
      How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
      How to improve any sentence.
      How to motivate our kids to write.
      How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
      How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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