stump

Etymology

From Middle English stumpe, stompe (“stump”), from or akin to Middle Low German stump (“stump”), from Proto-Germanic *stumpaz (“stump, blunt, part cut off”). Cognate with Middle Dutch stomp (“stump”), Old High German stumph (“stump”) (German Stumpf), Old Norse stumpr (“stump”). More at stop.

noun

1. The remains of something that has been cut off; especially the remains of a tree, the remains of a limb.
2. (politics) The place or occasion at which a campaign takes place; the husting.
3. (figurative) A place or occasion at which a person harangues or otherwise addresses a group in a manner suggesting political oration.
4. (cricket) 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.
5. (drawing) An artists’ drawing tool made of rolled paper used to smudge or blend marks made with charcoal, Conté crayon, pencil or other drawing media.
6. A wooden or concrete pole used to support a house.
7. (slang, humorous) A leg.
   to stir one's stumps
8. 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.
9. A pin or projection in a lock to form a guide for a movable piece.

verb

1. (transitive, informal) To stop, confuse, or puzzle.
2. (intransitive, informal) To baffle; to make unable to find an answer to a question or problem.
   This last question has me stumped.
3. (intransitive) To campaign.
   He’s been stumping for that reform for months.
4. (transitive, US, colloquial) To travel over (a state, a district, etc.) giving speeches for electioneering purposes.
5. (transitive, cricket, of a wicket keeper) To get a batsman out stumped.
6. (transitive, cricket) To bowl down the stumps of (a wicket).
7. (intransitive) To walk heavily or clumsily, plod, trudge.
8. (transitive) To reduce to a stump; to truncate or cut off a part of.
9. (transitive) To strike unexpectedly; to stub, as the toe against something fixed.