stump

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   remove tree stumps from

   Stump a field.

2. 2
   verb

   cause to be perplexed or confounded

   This problem stumped her.

3. 3
   verb

   travel through a district and make political speeches

   The candidate stumped the Northeast.

4. 4
   noun

   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!'.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

The noun stump already had much the same principal meanings in Middle English as it does today. The verb first meant “stumble over an obstacle,” especially a tree stump, and “walk clumsily” developed around 1600. The American sense “baffle” appeared in the early 19th century, probably from the way stumps encountered during ploughing obstructed the plough.

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.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary