stub

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.[1]

• enPR: stŭb, IPA^(key): /stʌb/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌb

stub (plural stubs)

1. Something blunted, stunted, or cut short, such as stubble or a stump.
   • 1700, [John] 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.

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

   check stub

   ticket stub

   payment stub

3. (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.

4. (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.

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

   Coordinate term: substub

6. (chiefly Wikimedia jargon) A Wikipedia 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).

7. The remaining part of the docked tail of a dog
8. An unequal first or last interest calculation period, as a part of a financial swap contract
9. (obsolete) A log or block of wood.
10. (obsolete) A blockhead.
    • [1644], [John Milton], Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, [London: […] 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[.]

11. A pen with a short, blunt nib.
12. An old and worn horseshoe nail.
13. Stub iron.
14. 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.
• “stub”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “stub”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• BTUs, TBUs, bust, but's, buts, tubs

• stȗp

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *stъlbъ.

• IPA^(key): /stûːb/

stȗb m (Cyrillic spelling сту̑б)

1. pillar
2. column (upright supporting beam)