stump [ME] In Middle English the noun stump had more or less the same main meanings as today. The verb was initially ‘to stumble over an obstacle’, especially over a tree stump, with the sense ‘to walk clumsily’ developing around 1600, although the jocular stump for a leg is medieval. The sense ‘to baffle’, was first used in American English in the early 19th century and probably arose from the idea of coming across stumps in ploughing which obstruct the progress of the plough. The Australian phrase beyond the black stump [L19th] means ‘beyond the limits of settled, and therefore civilized, life’. It comes from the custom of using a fire-blackened stump of wood as a marker when giving directions to travellers. To be on the stump is to go about the country making political speeches, a usage that originated in rural America in the late 18th century, when a person making a speech would often use a tree stump as an impromptu platform. The Democratic politician Adlai Stevenson said of Richard Nixon that he was ‘the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump, and make a speech on conservation’. To stump up a tree is to dig it up by the roots. This gives the meaning ‘to pay up, especially reluctantly’, from the image of digging deep into your pocket.