stele

noun

1. An upright (or formerly upright) slab containing engraved or painted decorations or inscriptions; a stela.

   “A superior class of members...had their names inscribed upon a marble stélé or column.”

   “It appears, that when any one of the family died, a stelè to his memory was added to the tomb.”

   “In Egypt [obelisks] belonged to the class of steles (commemorative pillars).”

   “The Australian stele, or grave-pillar.”

2. (uncommon)Any carved or engraved surface.

   “Two large hieroglyphed steles incised upon the face of a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff.”

3. (obsolete)An acroterion, the decoration on the ridge of an ancient Greek building such as a temple.

   “Stele. The ornaments on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to the antefixæ on the summit of the flank entablatures, are thus designated.”

4. The central core of a plant's root and stem system, especially including the vascular tissue and developed from the plerome.

   “The stele may have—in different structures—one to many protoxylem (primitive wood) groups, and is accordingly described as monarch...diarch...triarch...tetrarch...polyarch.”

   “The so-called central cylinder, for which Van Tieghem has proposed the name stele (column).”