/sah"teuhm/ , adj.
belonging to or consisting of those branches of the Indo-European family in which alveolar or palatal fricatives, as the sounds /s/ or /sh/ , developed in ancient times from Proto-Indo-European palatal stops: the satem branches are Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Slavic, Baltic, and Albanian. Cf. centum 2 .
[ 1900-05; satam hundred (c. L centum; see CENTUM 2 ), exemplifying in s- the outcome of Indo-European palatal stops characteristic of the group ]