stub

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   strike one's toe accidentally against an object

   I stubbed my toe in the dark and now it's broken.

2. 2
   verb

   clear of weeds by uprooting them

   Stub a field.

3. 3
   verb

   extinguish by crushing

   Stub out your cigarette now.

Multiword verbs with stub

• stub out Phrasal verb C2

  to put out a cigarette or cigar by pressing and crushing its burning end

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Stub is an Old English word that originally meant a tree stump. Its meaning broadened in late Middle English to a broken branch or other portion left behind, and by the mid-16th century to any remaining piece. The sense “accidentally strike,” as in stubbing a toe, arose in American English in the mid-19th century.

From Middle English stubbe (“tree stump”), from Old English stybb, stubb (“tree stump”), from Proto-West Germanic *stubb, from Proto-Germanic *stubbaz (compare Middle Dutch stubbe, Old Norse stubbr, Faroese stubbi (“stub”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tew-; compare steep (“sharp slope”). Doublet of stob. Sense extended in Middle English to similarly shaped objects. Verb sense “strike one’s toe” is recorded 1848; “extinguish a cigarette” 1927.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary