stubble

plural stubbles

1. countableuncountableusuallyShort, coarse hair, especially on a man’s face.

   Synonyms: five o'clock shadow

2. countableuncountableusuallyliteralThe short stalks left in a field after crops have been harvested.

   Lord (ſayth he) Put them as a wheele and a ſtoble before the face of the wynde. For as the ſtoble, whyle the wynde bloweth wauereth and flyethe aboue in the ayre, nowe hygh nowe lowe, but anone as the wynde paſſeth it falleth adowne to the erthe and lyeth there ſtylle.

   1536 October 26 (date written; Gregorian calendar), “[The Eyght Commandement] Cap[ut] VII”, in Diues and Pauper, London: […] Tho[mas] Bertheleti […], published 1536, →OCLC, folio 313, recto

present singular third person stubbles · participle present stubbling · participle past stubbled · past stubbled

1. agricultureTo produce a crop in a field of stubble that remains after a preceding crop is removed, either by sowing a second crop or by allowing shoots to sprout from the roots of the stubble.

   In 1919 the stubbled crop was heavier than either that fallowed or plowed.

   1922, John Selden Cole, Alanson Lola Hallsted, Methods of Winter-wheat Production at the Fort Hays Branch Station, page 22

   3 more examples

   Here a system ( if it may be called a system ) of stubbling prevails — wheat succeeding wheat for a series of years, and without any material diminution of the yield.

   1851, United States. Department of Agriculture, Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year: 1850, page 371

   Both spring and fall ploughing produced a crop freer from weeds than where the seed was stubbled in.

   1922, Canada. Dept. of Agriculture. Research Station, Lacombe, Alta, Interim Report of the Superintendent, page 65

   Because the biggest single expense in producing the crop is planting, good stubbling ability is prized.

   1983, W. H. Smith, Symposium on Potential Productivity of Field Crops Under Different Environments, page 377