Stump
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stump¹
- /stʌmp/ US, UK
- /stʊmp/ Midlands, Northern England
- /stɐmp/ Australia, New Zealand
Rhymes with -ʌmp
Where it comes from
From Middle English stumpe, stompe (“stump”), from or akin to Middle Low German stump (“stump”) or Middle Dutch stomp, from Old Saxon or Old Dutch *stump, from Proto-West Germanic *stump, from Proto-Germanic *stumpaz (“stump, blunt, part cut off”). Displaced native Old English stofn.
Cognate with Middle Dutch stomp (“stump”), Old High German stumph (“stump”) (German Stumpf), Old Norse stumpr (“stump”). More at stop.
noun stumps
- The remains of something that has been cut off; especially the remains of a tree, the remains of a limb.
- The place or occasion at which a campaign takes place; the husting.
- A place or occasion at which a person harangues or otherwise addresses a group in a manner suggesting political oration. 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!'
- 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.
- An artists’ drawing tool made of rolled paper used to smudge or blend marks made with charcoal, Conté crayon, pencil or other drawing media.
- A wooden or concrete pole used to support a house.
- A leg. to stir one's stumps
- 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.
- A pin or projection in a lock to form a guide for a movable piece.
verb stumps · stumping · stumped · stump
- To stop, confuse, or puzzle.
- To baffle; to make unable to find an answer to a question or problem. This last question has me stumped.
- To campaign. He’s been stumping for that reform for months.
- To travel over (a state, a district, etc.) giving speeches for electioneering purposes. Freedom was in the air this spring, when millionaire philosopher Ivan Kramberger stumped the countryside on a platform of Slovenian independence and social welfare.
- To get a batsman out stumped.
- To bowl down the stumps of (a wicket). A herd of boys with clamour bowled, / And stumped the wicket.
- To walk heavily or clumsily, plod, trudge. Mrs Dibble made for the kitchen, stumping violently with her crutches and heaving her bulk along with the obvious determination to submerge her wrongs by resorting to the gin-bottle.
- To reduce to a stump; to truncate or cut off a part of.
- To strike unexpectedly; to stub, as the toe against something fixed.
Stump²
proper noun Stumps
- A surname.
