stanch

1 of 2

verb

ˈstȯnch 

ˈstänch,

ˈstanch

variants or staunch

ˈstȯnch 

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 

ˈstänch,

ˈstanch

less common spelling of staunch entry 2

1

: steadfast in loyalty or principle

a staunch friend

2

a

: watertight, sound

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

Get Citation Request Reprint Permissions When Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes office as Mexico’s president in December, his biggest challenge will be to stanch the escalating problem of criminal violence. —Vanda Felbab-Brown, Foreign Affairs, 27 Sep. 2018

An $11 billion merger in 2005 with another fading retail brand, Sears, led by hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert failed to stanch the bleeding. —Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 23 Sep. 2024

Protesters have since unleashed a flood of criticism of the king that was unthinkable just months earlier and that authorities have been unable to stanch. —Tamara Loos, Foreign Affairs, 7 Dec. 2020

Internally, leaders are scrambling to stanch the bleeding. —Jane Thier, Fortune, 17 Sep. 2024

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

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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

ˈstȯnch, ˈstänch 

: to check or stop the flowing of

stanch bleeding

also : to stop the flow of blood from

stanch a wound