stump

Etymology

From Middle English stumpe, stompe (“stump”), from or akin to Middle Low German stump (“stump”), from Proto-Germanic *stumpaz (“stump, blunt, part cut off”). Cognate with Middle Dutch stomp (“stump”), Old High German stumph (“stump”) (German Stumpf), Old Norse stumpr (“stump”). More at stop.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stʌmp/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmp

Noun

stump (plural stumps)

1. The remains of something that has been cut off; especially the remains of a tree, the remains of a limb.
2. (politics) The place or occasion at which a campaign takes place; the husting.
3. (figuratively) A place or occasion at which a person harangues or otherwise addresses a group in a manner suggesting political oration.
   • 1886, Henry James, The Princess Casamassima.

     Paul Muniment had taken hold of Hyacinth, and said, 'I'll trouble you to stay, you little desperado. I'll be blowed if I ever expected to see you on the stump!'

4. (cricket) One of three small wooden posts which together with the bails make the wicket and that the fielding team attempt to hit with the ball.
5. (drawing) An artists’ drawing tool made of rolled paper used to smudge or blend marks made with charcoal, Conté crayon, pencil or other drawing media.
6. A wooden or concrete pole used to support a house.
7. (slang, humorous) A leg.

   to stir one's stumps

8. A pin in a tumbler lock which forms an obstruction to throwing the bolt except when the gates of the tumblers are properly arranged, as by the key.
9. A pin or projection in a lock to form a guide for a movable piece.

Verb

stump (third-person singular simple present stumps, present participle stumping, simple past and past participle stumped)

1. (transitive) to stop, confuse, or puzzle
2. (intransitive) to baffle; to be unable to find an answer to a question or problem

   This last question has me stumped.

3. (intransitive) to campaign

   He’s been stumping for that reform for months.

4. (transitive, US, colloquial) to travel over (a state, a district, etc.) giving speeches for electioneering purposes
5. (transitive, cricket, of a wicket keeper) to get a batsman out stumped
6. (transitive, cricket) to bowl down the stumps of (a wicket)
   • Tennyson

     A herd of boys with clamour bowled, / And stumped the wicket.

7. (intransitive) to walk heavily or clumsily, plod, trudge

See also

• stump up

Further reading

• stump in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• stump in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• stump at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• tumps

Adjective

stump (neuter stumpt, plural and definite singular attributive stumpe, comparative stumpere, superlative (predicative) stumpest, superlative (attributive) stumpeste)

1. blunt

   en stump genstand

   a blunt instrument

2. (geometry) obtuse

Noun

stump c (singular definite stumpen, plural indefinite stumper)

1. stump, piece
   • 2015, Haruki Murakami, Mænd uden kvinder, Klim →ISBN

     Det eneste, der er tilbage, er en gammel stump viskelæder og sømændenes fjerne klagesange.

     All that is left is an old piece of an eraser and the distant elegies of the sailors.

Etymology

From Old Norse stumpr and Middle Low German stump

Noun

stump m (definite singular stumpen, indefinite plural stumper, definite plural stumpene)

1. a stub, stump, bit, fragment, piece, butt (of cigar, cigarette)
2. (humorous) buttocks, little scamp, tiny tot

References

• “stump” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Etymology

From Old Norse stumpr and Middle Low German stump

Noun

stump m (definite singular stumpen, indefinite plural stumpar, definite plural stumpane)

1. a stub, stump, bit, fragment, piece, butt (of cigar, cigarette)
2. (humorous) buttocks, little scamp, tiny tot

References

• “stump” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Noun

stump c

1. stump; something which has been cut off or continuously shortened, such as a very short pencil