stanch

1 of 2

verb

ˈstȯnch How to pronounce stanch (audio)
ˈstänch,
ˈstanch
variants or staunch
ˈstȯnch How to pronounce stanch (audio)
ˈstänch
stanched or staunched; stanching or staunching; stanches or staunches

transitive verb

1
: to check or stop the flowing of
stanched her tears
also : to stop the flow of blood from (a wound)
2
a
: to stop or check in its course
trying to stanch the crime wave
b
: to make watertight : stop up
3
archaic : allay, extinguish
stancher noun

stanch

2 of 2

adjective

ˈstȯnch How to pronounce stanch (audio)
ˈstänch,
ˈstanch

less common spelling of staunch entry 2

1
: steadfast in loyalty or principle
a staunch friend
2
b
: strongly built : substantial

Did you know?

Staunch and Stanch

Both stanch and staunch come from the Anglo-French estancher, meaning “to check or stop the flowing of.” Both have been in use for many hundreds of years. And most dictionaries will list them as having the exact same meaning. They are, in fact, variants of each other. But there's a catch: staunch is more commonly used as an adjective (it has several meanings in this role, including “steadfast in loyalty or principle” and "substantial"), and stanch is more commonly used as a verb (common meanings are "to check or stop the flowing of" and "to stop or check in its course"). Here are example of each in typical use:

a staunch supporter/advocate

staunch resistance/allegiance

to stanch the flow/bleeding

stanching the loss of jobs/revenue

Note that saying that something is more commonly used in some way does not necessarily mean that people who choose to use it in the less common way are wrong. There is a considerable body of evidence, from reputable sources, of staunch and stanch being used in their less common roles.

Some people will tell you that you should always keep these words apart, and if you’d like to do this you may find the following sentence of some assistance in helping you to remember the difference: "A staunch friend would help you stanch a bleeding thumb."

Alternatively, you may rely on the time-honored method of people-who-remember-things-poorly and use this limerick:

Tho’ neither stanch nor staunch must conform
To rigid semantical norm
Some editors will blanch,
When encountering stanch
If it’s used in adjective form

Examples of stanch in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Verb
With land deliveries doing little to stanch the growing crisis, the United States has expanded aid drops to Gaza, with flights now operating from of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. Miriam Berger, Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2024 President Biden is facing pressure from Republicans in Washington and from some mayors and governors to stanch the flow of migrants into the country and into cities and towns struggling to absorb the new arrivals. Miriam Jordan, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2024 The Ukraine Catholic University and the Washington Institute for Business, Government and Society will soon announce a countrywide ethics education program to stanch corruption in three sectors–business, government, and academia The West did not come together to win the war but lose the peace. James P. Moore Jr., Fortune Europe, 22 Feb. 2024 Mayor London Breed and other officials are desperately trying to stanch the hemorrhage of workers, shoppers and businesses while coping with the heavy impact on the city’s budget. Dan Walters, The Mercury News, 1 Feb. 2024 Putin just might seize the opportunity to stanch the bloodletting and try to bring Russia in from the cold. Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, Foreign Affairs, 17 Nov. 2023 The takeover marks a significant escalation in Abbott’s years-long conflict with federal immigration officials over control of the Southwest border in Texas and raises the constitutional question over their role in stanching the flow of migrants entering the state between ports of entry. Nick Miroff, Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2024 The move is likely an attempt to stanch the possible defection by affiliates spooked by the FBI’s access to the AlphV infrastructure. Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 20 Dec. 2023 The unspoken specter is the wall — or walls — that from 1961 divided Berlin and Germany into the communist East and the democratic West, stanching the free movement of people (under pain of death) and, to some extent, ideas. Walker Mimms, New York Times, 4 Jan. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'stanch.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Verb

Middle English staunchen, stanchen, staungen (transitive) "to stop (blood from flowing), alleviate (pain, distress), put out (fire), quell, overcome," (intransitive) "(of blood, diarrhea) to stop flowing, (of a wound) stop bleeding, (of water) stand still, stop flowing," borrowed from Anglo-French estancher, estauncher (also continental Old & Middle French), probably going back to Vulgar Latin *stanticāre "to stop (the flow of a liquid), stop, check, hinder," from stant-, stans, present participle of stāre "to stand" + -icāre, verb formative — more at stand entry 1

Note: As with other loans from Anglo-French having a tautosyllabic nasal consonant before a dental, there was variation between a diphthong and a simple vowel in the Middle English outcome; note staunch entry 1 from the same etymon, and compare branch entry 1, haunch, launch entry 1. — The Romance etymon behind estancher (Modern French étancher "to stanch, quench, stop up") is widely attested—compare with similar meaning Old Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese estancar, along with Italian stancare "to tire," stanco "tired," mano stanca (Dante) "left hand," Romanian stânc "left(-handed)." Alongside these are a set of words without initial (e)s-, which may have been taken as a prefix: Catalan tancar "to close," Old Occitan tancar "to bar (a door)," and Occitan (Provence) tancá "to stop (a wheel with a wedge)"; see also pétanque. The etymology tracing these to Vulgar Latin *stanticāre, a verbalization of Latin aqua stans "standing water," was apparently first suggested by G. Tillander (Remarques sur le Roman de Renart, Gothenburg, 1923, pp. 52-60). J. Coromines (Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico) objected strongly to this hypothesis, on the grounds that loss of the pretonic vowel would have resulted in *estanxar in Catalan and *estanchar in Occitan, and that in Italian the vowel would not have been lost at all. The rejoinder has been made that cases of later syncope in Italian can be found, and that there is variability in the timing of syncope in Occitan and Catalan.

First Known Use

Verb

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of stanch was in the 14th century

Podcast

Dictionary Entries Near stanch

Cite this Entry

“Stanch.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stanch. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

stanch

1 of 2 verb
variants also staunch
ˈstȯnch,
ˈstänch
1
: to stop the flow of
stanch tears
also : to stop the flow of blood from (a wound)
2
: to stop in its course
trying to stanch the crime wave

stanch

2 of 2

variant of staunch entry 2

Medical Definition

stanch

transitive verb
variants also staunch
: to check or stop the flowing of
stanch bleeding
also : to stop the flow of blood from
stanch a wound
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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