[f. STUMP sb. + -Y.]
1. Like a stump; short and thick. Of grass, etc. Full of stumps or short hard stalks.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, IV. ii. 633. The haie … is full of stumpie stalkes,… and nothing pleasing [etc.].
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric., vii. (1681), 123. Once for all, the stumpy Graff will be found much Superior to the slender one, and make a much nobler and larger shoot.
1721. Mortimer, Husb. (ed. 5), I. 157. They often burn the Stubble, it being so stumpy that they seldom plow it in.
1834. Beckford, Italy, II. 54. Festoons of luxuriant leaves and tendrils, not fastened to stiff poles and stumpy stakes as in France.
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, I. 198. A stout short-legged pony, with a thick neck and a stumpy tail.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., IV. iv. (1872), I. 295. Nose smallish, inclining to be stumpy.
1862. H. H. Dixon, Scott & Sebright, iii. 138. He was a thick short horse, got us little stumpy mares, we’ve very few of them.
1890. D. C. Murray, John Vale, iv. The stumpy bamboo cane which Mr. Macfarlane carried.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 572. The hairs turn white, hypertrophy, become stumpy and brittle, or fall out.
1916. Blackw. Mag., April, 469/2. You may see a boat, her high receding bows surmounted by a stumpy beak.
Comb. 1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., xii. 355. Both stories accounting … for the fact that bears and hyenas are stumpy-tailed.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), II. III. 174. This pert throng Are only stumpy-winged and cackling … geese.
b. of a human figure.
1822. Galt, Provost, xliii. (1868), 125. This Mr. Peevie was, in his person, a stumpy man.
1856. F. E. Paget, Owlet of Owlst., 78. That short stumpy woman in the cloak is Miss Creepmouse.
1862. Thornbury, Turner, II. 324. Turner was a stumpy, ill-dressed man, with a red face.
1866. Mrs. Gaskell, Wives & Dau., xl. I was always afraid she’d be short and stumpy.
c. of a building.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., II. 128. The stumpy towers of Ripon Minster.
1883. A. Dobson, in Eng. Illustr. Mag., Nov., 76/2. The fine old Banqueting House … seems to overlook the stumpy Horse Guards much as a person with a pedigree might be supposed to survey a nouveau riche.
1896. A. J. C. Hare, Story of my Life, I. ii. 57. Our high field, over which the stumpy spire of the church could be seen.
d. Nat. Hist.
1858. Baird, Cycl. Nat. Sci., Scarabæidæ, Their forms are very varied, but generally short and stumpy.
1863. P. P. Carpenter, in Rep. Brit. Assoc., I. 643. Mytilus ? var. glomeratus.… Short, stumpy, solid, crowded.
1886. J. J. Quelch, Coral-Reefs, in Challenger Rep., XVI. III. 66. Its thickened, short, stumpy and close branches and branchlets.
1896. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., V. 20. Stumpy crocodile, a small and short-nosed crocodile (Osteolæmus tetraspis) from West Africa, in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone.
2. Worn down to a stump.
1794. J. Williams, Crying Epist., 15. Let them not force me to repair these slips: To fasten stumpy brooms upon my ships.
1840. Thackeray, Shabby-genteel Story, i. A stumpy pen, richly crusted with ink at the nib.
1883. R. Haldane, Workshop Rec., Ser. II. 254/1. Rub the old colour up with a stumpy brush.
3. Of ground: Full of stumps. U.S.
1838. N. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1883), 150. Climbing a rude, rough, rocky, stumpy, ferny height yesterday.
1879. J. Burroughs, Locusts & Wild Honey, 122. A little stumpy clearing.
1885. J. Bigelow, in Harper’s Mag., March, 536/2. Soil, whether … gravel, sand, stumpy, stony.
1897. Outing, July, 328/2. A few acres of stumpy pasture.
Hence Stumpily adv., Stumpiness.
1878. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit. (1879), II. 107. Such stumpiness of proportion was not viewed as essential to the style.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 331. A stumpily made … good-natured simpleton.
