stubble

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   short, stiff hair that remains or grows after shaving, especially on the face

   A line of white stubble covered the old man's jaw.

2. 2
   noun

   the short stalks left in a field after a crop has been cut

   Crows searched the wheat stubble for scattered grain.

From Middle English stuble, through Anglo-Norman and Old French estuble, from Latin stipula ("stalk, straw"). The agricultural sense is oldest; the facial-hair sense arose by comparison between short coarse hairs and the cut stalks remaining in a field.

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