to stump

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

'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.

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

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