Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The short, stiff stalks of grain or hay remaining on a field after harvesting.
  • noun Something resembling this material, especially the short growth of hair that eventually protrudes from the skin after shaving.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as stubble-cane.
  • noun The lower ends of grain-stalks, collectively, left standing in the ground when the crop is cut; the covering of a harvested field of grain.
  • noun Something resembling or analogous to stubble, especially a short rough beard, or the short hair on a cropped head. See stubbly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The stumps of wheat, rye, barley, oats, or buckwheat, left in the ground; the part of the stalk left by the scythe or sickle.
  • noun (Zoöl.), [Prov. Eng.] the graylag goose.
  • noun a rake with long teeth for gleaning in stubble.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable and uncountable short, coarse hair, especially on a man’s face.
  • noun countable and uncountable the short stalks left in a field after crops have been harvested.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun material consisting of seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds
  • noun short stiff hairs growing on a man's face when he has not shaved for a few days

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English stuble, from Old French estuble, from Latin stupula, stupla, variant of stipula, straw.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English stuble, from Latin stupula ("stalk, straw").

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Examples

  • If I have on the right (or, I guess, wrong) sort of underwear, the stubble is like Velcro and I have to rip my undies off every time I go to the bathroom.

    MENAGE A MONDAY – featuring One Nerve Left « Bored Mommy 2010

  • Price: 3,500,000 Euro ckolderup oh no, semantic polysemy! we've never had to deal with that before! csessums patched with rat stubble from a barber's dust pan cwaxler civil case Tiffany brought against eBay drothschild iT WAS A QUEER, SULTRY SUMMER, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York jessamyn Personally, I'm after the uncontrolled growth of pubic hair.

    Paste to Win! (A Twitter Contest) - Anil Dash 2008

  • I definitely think stubble is the way to go for him.

    Twilight Lexicon » Evening News 2008

  • OR amount of stubble is proportionate to job satisfaction. who wants to work somewhere that makes shave. you might as well say employablity is proportionate to cost of your tie/suit instead of saying casual attire/comfortablity of dress is proportionate to job satisfaction

    The Man? I don't work for him. I AM him. Jessica Hagy 2007

  • [Page 49] poor souls were driven forth to gather in stubble for mixing with their clay; and yet how they were required to give in as large a tale of bricks at the end of each day's work as if the straw had been duly provided.

    Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers 1891

  • When the stubble is driven by the wind it will rest, at last, under some hedge, in some ditch or other; but he prays that they might not only be driven away as stubble, but burnt up as stubble.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon) 1721

  • Cary Grant with two week’s worth of stubble is a drunken bum.

    Time catches up with all of us, even Cary Grant 2010

  • Cary Grant with two week’s worth of stubble is a drunken bum.

    Lance Mannion: 2010

  • The way you’d be covered in stubble and unwashed to the point where you can smell your own skin.

    duh pookie 2008

  • The way you’d be covered in stubble and unwashed to the point where you can smell your own skin.

    duh pookie 2008

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