up the stump

English

Alternative forms

• up a stump

Prepositional phrase

up the stump

1. (informal) At a loss, puzzled, in a bind.
   • 1900, Queensland Agricultural Journal, volume 7, page 216:

     Science is up the stump. She can't find out why green sorghum should be so quickly fatal to cattle, says an exchange.

   • 1907, The American Journal of Clinical Medicine, volume 14, page 662:

     He said old Dr. Blank had been attending to him all day, but was “up the stump” and wanted me to help.

   • 2001, Suzanne L. Bunkers, Diaries of Girls and Women: A Midwestern American Sampler, University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 218:

     Just today I gave his history class a few questions to answer and hand in, but when it came time to answering the last two he was up the stump.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:up the stump.
2. (Canada, informal) Pregnant.
   • 1976, Richard B. Wright, Farthings Fortune's, Macmillan of Canada, →ISBN, page 266:

     Met him at a dance, a skinny little French-Canadian who shot her a line of bull and put her up the stump before waving goodbye from the troop train.

   • 1987, Anne Cameron, Stubby Amberchuk & The Holy Grail, Harbour Publishing, →ISBN, page 75:

     "I'm real glad that you told me. When your mom and I got married, it was because she was up the stump, you know that, huh?"

   • 1989, David Helwig, A Postcard from Rome, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 100:

     You're up the stump, Edith Fulton. You're going to have a baby.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:up the stump.

Synonyms

• (pregnant): see also Thesaurus:pregnant.