stum

English

Etymology

From Dutch stom (“unfermented”, literally “mute; dull”). Compare French vin muet, German stummer Wein.

Pronunciation

• Homophones: shtum, shtoom

Noun

stum (countable and uncountable, plural stums)

1. (obsolete) Unfermented grape juice; must.
   • Ben Jonson

     Let our wines, without mixture of stum, be all fine.

   • John Dryden

     And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause.

2. (obsolete) Wine revived by new fermentation, resulting from the admixture of must.
   • 1664, Samuel Butler, Hudibras; with notes by T. R. Nash, Volume 1, published 1835, Part II, Canto 1, page 265:

     Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum,
     And make it brisk champaign become.

   • 1859, The family manual and servants' guide, 9 edition:

     To each hogshead of genuine Bordeaux wine, there are four gallons of Benicarlo, half a gallon of stum wine, and a small quantity of Hermitage added, which mixture undergoes a slight fermentation, and is then exported under the name of claret.

   • 1987, André Bustanoby, The Wrath of Grapes: Drinking and the Church Divided, →ISBN, page 36:

     But stum wine was not intended for drinking.

Verb

stum (third-person singular simple present stums, present participle stumming, simple past and past participle stummed)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To ferment.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To renew (wine etc.) by mixing must with it and raising a new fermentation.
   • Floyer

     We stum our wines to renew their spirits.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To fume, as a cask of liquor, with burning sulphur.
   • 1789, “Cultivation of the Vine”, in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, volume 1:

     Since I have taken this method with cyder, it has proved more like wine than common drink, but then I racked it off a second and a third time, as soon as it appeared fine, and then stummed the cask that received it the lasttime […]

References

• “stum”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• MTUs, UMTS, must, smut, tums

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Danish

Adjective

stum (neuter stumt, plural and definite singular attributive stumme)

1. mute, not possessing the ability of speech
2. temporarily unable to speak due to strong emotion
3. not involving speech

   De så ikke min stumme bøn.

   They did not see my silent plea.

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Latvian

Verb

stum

1. (deprecated template usage) 2nd person singular present indicative form of stumt
2. (deprecated template usage) 2nd person singular imperative form of stumt

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Swedish

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

stum

1. mute; unable to speak

Related terms

• stumhet
• stumfilm

Anagrams

• must, tums