stub

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stub

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From Middle English stubbe (“tree stump”), from Old English stybb, stubb (“tree stump”), from Proto-West Germanic *stubb, from Proto-Germanic *stubbaz (compare Middle Dutch stubbe, Old Norse stubbr, Faroese stubbi (“stub”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tew-; compare steep (“sharp slope”). Doublet of stob.

Sense extended in Middle English to similarly shaped objects. Verb sense “strike one’s toe” is recorded 1848; “extinguish a cigarette” 1927.

• enPR: stŭb, IPA^(key): /stʌb/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Northern England, Ireland) IPA^(key): /stʊb/
• Rhymes: -ʌb

stub (plural stubs)

1. Something blunted, stunted, or cut short, such as stubble or a stump.
   • 1700, Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     And prickly stubs instead of trees are found.

3. A piece of certain paper items, designed to be torn off and kept for record or identification purposes.

   check stub

   ticket stub

   payment stub

5. (programming) A placeholder procedure that has the signature of the planned procedure but does not yet implement the intended behavior.

   Coordinate terms: mock, mock object

   • 2000, Nell B. Dale, Chip Weems, John W. McCormick, Programming and Problem Solving with ADA 95, 2nd edition, Jones & Bartlett Learning, →ISBN, page 352:

     Even though the stub is a dummy, it allows us to determine whether the procedure is called at the right time by the program or calling procedure.

7. (computing, middleware) A procedure that translates requests from external systems into a format suitable for processing and then submits those requests for processing.

   Coordinate term: skeleton

   • 2002, Judith M. Myerson, The Complete Book of Middleware, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 7:

     The server performs the server RPC runtime library functions to accept the request and call the server stub procedure. After this, the server stub calls the actual procedure on the server.

9. (typography, in tabular matter) A row heading in a table (with horizontal reference, whereas a column heading has vertical reference).

   Synonym: sidehead

   Coordinate term: substub

10. (wiki jargon) An article providing only minimal information and intended for later development.
    • 2008, John Broughton, Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 66:

      A stub is usually long enough to serve as a quick definition, but too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject (see Figure 4-2).

12. (electronics, radio frequency circuits) A length of transmission line or waveguide that is connected at one end only.
13. The remaining part of the docked tail of a dog
14. An unequal first or last interest calculation period, as a part of a financial swap contract
15. (obsolete) A log or block of wood.
16. (obsolete) A blockhead.
    • , , Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, Thomas Underhill and/or Thomas Johnson], →OCLC, page 3:

      I doubt not but ye ſhall have more adoe to drive out dulleſt and lazieſt youth, our ſtocks and ſtubbs from the infinite deſire of such a happy nurture, then we have now to hale and drag our choiſeſt and hopefulleſt wits to that aſinine feaſt of ſowthiſtles and brambles

17. A pen with a short, blunt nib.
18. An old and worn horseshoe nail.
19. Stub iron.
20. The smallest remainder of a smoked cigarette; a butt.

• stubble
• stump

stub (third-person singular simple present stubs, present participle stubbing, simple past and past participle stubbed)

1. (transitive) To remove most of a tree, bush, or other rooted plant by cutting it close to the ground.
2. (transitive) To remove a plant by pulling it out by the roots.
3. (transitive) To jam, hit, or bump, especially a toe.

   I stubbed my toe trying to find the light switch in the dark.

• stub out
• unstubbed

• “stub”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “stub”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “stub”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• BTUs, but's, TUBS, TBUs, buts, bust, tubs

• stȗp

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *stъlbъ.

• IPA^(key): /stûːb/

stȗb m (Cyrillic spelling сту̑б)

1. pillar
2. column (upright supporting beam)