'To stub one's toe,' is to strike it against anything in walking or running; an expression often used by boys and others who go barefoot.
'To stump it,' or 'take the stump.' A cant phrase signifying to make electioneering speeches.--Worcester. This is a term borrowed from the backwoods, where the stump of a tree often supplies the place of the English hustings.
To challenge; to defy.--Webster. Worcester. The more usual meaning, however, is to puzzle; to confound.
Dabbs turns up his nose at betting. Instead of stumping his antagonist by launching out his cash, he shakes a portentous fist under his nose, and the affair is settled.--Neal's Charcoal Sketches.
When you see Lord Sydenham, tump him; and ask him, when a log is hewed and squared, if he can tell the tenth side of it.--Sam Slick.
Heavens and earth! thinks I, what does all this mean? I knowed I hadn't done anything to be put in prison for, and I never was so stumped.--Maj. Jones's Courtship, p. 133.
At this the parson appeared as if he was stump't.--Crockett, Tour, p. 16.
I put a conundrum to them. They were all stump't and gave it up.--Ibid.