draw stumps
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To stop or abandon an activity
Literally: remove the stumps of trees
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The match was Halling Institute v Snodland, and was decided by the first innings Snodland scoring 77 and Halling 49, Halling were playing valiantly when stumps were drawn at 6.30. "
At half past six, the time for drawing stumps, the scores were tied, but S. M. J. Woods, the Gentlemen's (and Somerset's) captain, decided to have another shot.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “draw stumps” mean?
To stop or abandon an activity Literally: remove the stumps of trees
Is “draw stumps” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.