Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition (2013) has this entry for the idiom "stem the tide":
stem the tide Stop the course of a trend or tendency, as in It is not easy to stem the tide of public opinion. The idiom uses stem in the sense of "stop" or "restrain." {Mid-1800s}
But Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) has as one of its three discrete entries for stem as a verb this entry:
stem vt stemmed; stemming {ME (Sc) stemmen to keep a course, fr. stem (of a ship)} (1593) 1 : to make headway against (as an adverse tide, current, or wind) 2 : to check or go counter to (something adverse)
A Google Books search turns up fairly early instances of "stem the tide" in both the "make progress against a tide" and the "block the advance of a tide" senses.
From Will Dampier, A Voyage to New-Holland, &c. in the Year 1699 (1703):
We were driven four Leagues back again, and took particular Notice of a Point of Land that looked like Flamborough-head, when we were either to the East or West of it ; and near the Shore it appeared like an Island. Four or five Leagues to the East of this Point, is another very remarkable bluff Point, which is on the West side of the Bay that my Boat was in. [Table cross reference omitted.] We could not stem the Tide, till about three a Clock in the Afternoon [of September 30]; when the Tide running with us, we soon got abreast of the Bay, and then saw a small Island to the Eastward of us.
And contrastingly, from Francis Drake, Eboracum: or, The History and Antiquities of the City of York, from its Original to the Present Times (1736):
About this time [1625] the great cut for draining the levels below Doncaster was made. A noble canal, and first undertaken by one Cornelins Vermeydan a Dutchman ; but afterwards compleated by his executors. It is a strait channel of near five miles in length, and near a hundred yards broad at high water ; it empties itself into the Ouse at a village called Gool. This cut was originally designed for a drain to such lands in the levels, whose water could not any other way be so conveniently carried off. But for their own safety, as well as by a remonstrance from the city of York, they built a sluice and flood-gates at the mouth of it to stop the tide from taking that course. In the year 1688, or thereabouts, by a violent land flood, this work blew up, and was never since repaired, as there are still living witnesses can testify. The land owners in those parts have been ever since at great expence to stem the tide which flows impetuously in, and daily undermines their works.
A further complication is that one of the earliest metaphorical appearances of "stem the tide" could easily be read as meaning, not "make progress against the tide" or "stop the advance of the tide," but rather "oppose the tide, whether successfully or not." From "A Speech of MENTOR, imitated from the 22d Book of TELEMACHUS," in The Gentleman's Magazine (October 1737):
Who, nobly warm'd, shall, in his country's cause,/Rife up to stem the tide of publick mischief?/Alas in vain! the truly great, the wise,/The bravely just, their patriot virtues scorn'd,/Hopeless, retire to peaceful silent shades,/And mourn in private o'er their country's ruin. ... Nay those who see the folly, and condemn,/Yet dare not be the first to stem the tide./Thus the whole Nation sinks and falls to ruin:/All rank is lost, all order is confus'd.
My questions:
What are the earliest known occurrences of "stem the tide," in each of the senses described above, both literally (with regard to an actual tide) and figuratively (with regard to a metaphorical tide)?
What was the more common sense of the idiom historically, and when (if at all) did the preponderant sense change?
Is "stem the tide" still used in multiple senses today?
