stub

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
stub/stʌb/

▶noun

• 1 the truncated remnant of a pencil, cigarette, or similar-shaped object after use.

• 2 a truncated or unusually short thing: he wagged his little stub of tail.

• 3 the counterfoil of a cheque, ticket, or other document.

• 4 [as modifier] denoting a projection or hole that goes only part of the way through a surface.

▶verb (stubs, stubbing, stubbed)

• 1 accidentally strike (one's toe) against something.

• 2 extinguish (a cigarette) by pressing the lighted end against something.

• 3 grub up (a plant) by the roots.

– origin OE stub(b) ‘stump of a tree’, of Gmc origin.