stub
/stʌb/noun, verb
stub is spelled S-T-U-B: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 26,092nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, stub means “Something blunted, stunted, or cut short, such as stubble or a stump” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of stub is stubs.
How many letters and syllables are in stub?
| Letters | 4: S-T-U-B |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.2 times per million words; the 26,092nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is stub?
Stub appears 1.2 times per million words in written English, the 26,092nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce stub?
- /stʌb/
- /stʊb/
Stub has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-stub.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with stub?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as stub.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: bust.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of stub
- stubs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- stubbing participle, present
- stubbed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does stub mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Something blunted, stunted, or cut short, such as stubble or a stump.
- 2
A piece of certain paper items, designed to be torn off and kept for record or identification purposes.
check stub
- 3
A placeholder procedure that has the signature of the planned procedure but does not yet implement the intended behavior.
- 4
A procedure that translates requests from external systems into a format suitable for processing and then submits those requests for processing.
- 5
A row heading in a table (with horizontal reference, whereas a column heading has vertical reference).
- 6
An article providing only minimal information and intended for later development.
- 7
A length of transmission line or waveguide that is connected at one end only.
- 8
The remaining part of the docked tail of a dog
verb
- 1
To remove most of a tree, bush, or other rooted plant by cutting it close to the ground.
- 2
To remove a plant by pulling it out by the roots.
- 3
To jam, hit, or bump, especially a toe.
I stubbed my toe trying to find the light switch in the dark.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Stub in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | souche, moignon , talon , ébauche |
| German | Stummel, Stumpf , Abreißzettel , Abriss , Stub, Stutzen |
| Portuguese | toco , canhoto, talão , esboço , desarraigar |
| Spanish | tocón, cepa, cachito , desprendible, resguardo, talón |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does stub come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).