# stub

> English word · Noun · IPA /stʌb/ · frequency rank #26,270

## Definitions
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.
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
9. An unequal first or last interest calculation period, as a part of a financial swap contract
10. A log or block of wood.
11. A blockhead.
12. A pen with a short, blunt nib.
13. An old and worn horseshoe nail.
14. Stub iron.
15. The smallest remainder of a smoked cigarette; a butt.

## Etymology
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.

## Easily confused with
- **su** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-su)
- **sun** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sun)
- **sub** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sub)
- **sum** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sum)
- **sue** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sue)
- **SUV** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-suv)
- **sup** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sup)
- **Sus** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sus)
- **Sui** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sui)
- **suh** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-suh)
- **Sul** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sul)
- **sud** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-sud)
- **stud** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-stud)
- **stun** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-stun)
- **swab** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-swab)
- **Styx** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-styx)
- **study** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-study)
- **stuff** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-stuff)
- **stuck** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-stuck)
- **stunt** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/stub-vs-stunt)

## Common misspellings (6)
`sstub`, `stbu`, `sttub`, `stubb`, `sutb`, `tsub`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/stub