Word Direct Answers

stump

stump is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 11 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.The part of a limb or other body remaining after a part is amputated or destroyed; a fixed or rooted remnant; a stub; as, the stump of a leg, a finger, a tooth, or a broom.
  2. 2.pl. The legs; as, to stir one's stumps. [Slang]
  3. 3.(Cricket) One of the three pointed rods stuck in the ground to form a wicket and support the bails.
  4. 4.A short, thick roll of leather or paper, cut to a point, or any similar implement, used to rub down the lines of a crayon or pencil drawing, in shading it, or for shading drawings by producing tints and gradations from crayon, etc., in powder.
  5. 5.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 fence; also, a pin or projection in a lock to form a guide for a movable piece. Leg stump (Cricket), the stump nearest to the batsman. -- Off stump (Cricket), the stump farthest from the batsman. -- Stump tracery (Arch.), a term used to describe late German Gothic tracery, in which the molded bar seems to pass through itself in its convolutions, and is then cut off short, so that a section of the molding is seen at the end of each similar stump. -- To go on the stump, or To take the stump, to engage in making public addresses for electioneering purposes; -- a phrase derived from the practice of using a stump for a speaker's platform in newly- settled districts. Hence also the phrases stump orator, stump speaker, stump speech, stump oratory, etc. [Colloq. U.S.]
  6. 6.To cut off a part of; to reduce to a stump; to lop. Around the stumped top soft moss did grow. Dr. H. More.
  7. 7.To strike, as the toes, against a stone or something fixed; to stub. [Colloq.]
  8. 8.To challenge; also, to nonplus. [Colloq.]
  9. 9.To travel over, delivering speeches for electioneering purposes; as, to stump a State, or a district. See To go on the stump, under Stump, n. [Colloq. U.S.]
  10. 10.(Cricket) (a) To put (a batsman) out of play by knocking off the bail, or knocking down the stumps of the wicket he is defending while he is off his allotted ground; -- sometimes with out. T. Hughes. (b) To bowl down the stumps of, as, of a wicket. A herd of boys with clamor bowled, And stumped the wicket. Tennyson. To stump it. (a) To go afoot; hence, to run away; to escape. [Slang] Ld. Lytton. (b) To make electioneering speeches. [Colloq. U.S.]
  11. 11.To walk clumsily, as if on stumps. To stump up, to pay cash. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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