Stum

//stʌm// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Unfermented grape juice; must. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"1620s, Ben Jonson, Leges Convivales Let our wines, without mixture of stum, be all fine."
2
Wine revived by new fermentation, resulting from the admixture of must. countable, obsolete, uncountable
"Drink ev'ry letter on't in stum, And make it brisk champaign become."

Verb

1
To ferment. obsolete, transitive
2
To renew (wine etc.) by mixing must with it and raising a new fermentation. obsolete, transitive
"We stum our crude wines […]to renew their spirits."
3
To fume, as a cask of liquor, with burning sulphur. obsolete, transitive
"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 […]"

Proper Noun

"1620s, Ben Jonson, Leges Convivales Let our wines, without mixture of stum, be all fine."

Etymology 1

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

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Dutch Stum.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.