stubble

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stubble

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From Middle English stuble, from Anglo-Norman stuble, estuble, from Old French estoble, esteule (whence Modern French éteule), from Latin stipula (“stalk, straw”). Cognate with Dutch stoppel, Central German Stoppel, Upper German Stupfel.

• IPA^(key): /ˈstʌb.əl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌbəl

stubble (usually uncountable, plural stubbles)

1. (countable and uncountable) Short, coarse hair, especially on a man’s face.
2. (countable and uncountable) The short stalks left in a field after crops have been harvested.

• (short hair on man’s face): five o'clock shadow
• stub
• stump

stubble (third-person singular simple present stubbles, present participle stubbling, simple past and past participle stubbled)

1. (agriculture) To produce a crop in a field of stubble that remains after a preceding crop is removed, either by sowing a second crop or by allowing shoots to sprout from the roots of the stubble.
   • 1851, United States. Department of Agriculture, Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year: 1850, page 371:

     Here a system ( if it may be called a system ) of stubbling prevails — wheat succeeding wheat for a series of years, and without any material diminution of the yield.

   • 1922, John Selden Cole, Alanson Lola Hallsted, Methods of Winter-wheat Production at the Fort Hays Branch Station, page 22:

     In 1919 the stubbled crop was heavier than either that fallowed or plowed.

   • 1922, Canada. Dept. of Agriculture. Research Station, Lacombe, Alta, Interim Report of the Superintendent, page 65:

     Both spring and fall ploughing produced a crop freer from weeds than where the seed was stubbled in.

   • 1983, W. H. Smith, Symposium on Potential Productivity of Field Crops Under Different Environments, page 377:

     Because the biggest single expense in producing the crop is planting, good stubbling ability is prized.

When the second crop arises from shoots that sprout from the roots of the stubble, one says that the second crop stubbles, while when sowing seeds for a crop in a field of stubble, one refers to stubbling in the crop.