Word.ws English Dictionary

stemwinder

stemwinder is the alternative spelling of stem-winder.

Meaning of stem-winder

Noun

stem-winder (plural stem-winders)

  1. A watch that is wound up by turning a small knob on a stem which holds a gear winding the mainspring.
  2. (US) A rousing speech, especially by a politician.
  3. (US) Someone who gives such speeches; a great orator.
  4. (US, proscribed) A boring, interminable speech.
    • Or – heaven forbid – the Bill Clinton of 1988, who gave a tedious stemwinder in 1988 that has gone down in the books as the worst nominating speech in recent memory?2000, Bill Schneider and Keating Holland, “What to look for Thursday at the Democratic National Convention”, August 17, 2000, CNN, “Clinton comparisons”
  5. (US, obsolete) Something top-notch or first-rate.

Forms of stemwinder

pluralstemwinders

Origin of stemwinder

From stem + winder.

Questions about stemwinder

What is stemwinder the alternative spelling of?
Stemwinder is the alternative spelling of stem-winder.

Words near stemwinder in the dictionary

  1. stemsons
  2. stemward
  3. stemwards
  4. stemware
  5. stemwares
  6. stemwinder
  7. stemwinders
  8. stemwood
  9. sten
  10. sten do
  11. sten dos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stemwinder (page history and authors); stem-winder (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “stemwinder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stemwinder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.