stanch

1 of 2

verb

ˈstȯnch

ˈstänch,

ˈstanch

variants or staunch

ˈstȯnch

ˈstänch

stanched or staunched; stanching or staunching; stanches or staunches

Synonyms of stanch next

transitive verb

: to check or stop the flowing of

stanched her tears

also : to stop the flow of blood from (a wound)

: to stop or check in its course

trying to stanch the crime wave

: to make watertight : stop up

archaic : allay, extinguish

stancher noun

stanch

2 of 2

adjective

ˈstȯnch

ˈstänch,

ˈstanch

less common spelling of staunch entry 2

: steadfast in loyalty or principle

a staunch friend

: watertight, sound

: 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

The estate claims Richins stole money from her husband’s masonry company in an effort to stanch debts from her real estate business, KRR, according to the new filing. —

Cheri Mossburg, CNN, 29 June 2023 Just days after the head of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming business hoisted the white flag, Nintendo heightened speculation that the Japanese mainstay may have to accelerate development of a next-generation console to stanch the hemorrhaging of demand for its Switch. —

Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 9 May 2023 But diminished artist income could stanch new work, ossifying a market where trading volumes have already crashed 95% from $17 billion in January 2022, according to figures from Token Terminal. —

Sidhartha Shukla, Fortune, 5 Aug. 2023 But Gavi financial documents show the organization has been trying to stanch the financial damage. —

Rebecca Robbins, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2023 The Celtics were continuing to mount a run when Brown, who was playing with a cotton swab stuffed up his left nostril to stanch the bleeding from his collision with Harden, tumbled in front of the opposing bench. —

Scott Cacciola, New York Times, 14 May 2023 They are focused less on the reality of global warming and governments’ ambitious commitments to stanch rising temperatures. —

Ned Temko, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 July 2023 Butts brought Daniels a towel to stanch the bleeding from his forehead and called 911. —

Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2023 To attempt to stanch the bleeding among independents. —

wsj.com, 4 May 2023 See More

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.