Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. ruined, impoverished.

1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1836		T. Hook Gilbert Gurney 266: Haven’t you heard, my dear fellow, we are stumped.
1840		R. Barham ‘The Merchant of Venice’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 46: Who, by [...] inviting his friends to dine, breakfast and sup, / Had shrunk his ‘weak means,’ and was ‘stump’d’ and ‘hard up’.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 64: A consignment of superannuated housekeepers and ‘stumpt-up’ butlers.
1853		G.A. Sala ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: . To say that a man is without money, or in poverty, some persons remark that he is down on his luck, hard up, stumped up, in Queer Street, under a cloud, up a tree, quisby, done up, sold up, in a fix.
1869		H. Smart Breezie Langton I 76: ‘[S]ays I that’s an old pal, I’m about stumped, he’s the man to set me afloat again’.
1878		J. Hatton Cruel London I 206: You stumped! Why, you told me you made five thousand last week.
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 125: If I’m stumped now, aunt ’ll lend me a brown or two when she’s got ’em.
1889		Northampton Mercury 19 Oct. 9/2: I’m stumped — cleaned out .
1894		H. Lawson ‘Across the Straits’ in Roderick (1972) 200: Wire quid; stumped.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 4 May 481: There’s just about enough money left to try one more fling; and if that shouldn’t succeed, I’m stumped.
1905		‘The Old Bark Hut’ in ‘Banjo’ Paterson Old Bush Songs 12: I was once well-to-do, my boys, but now I am stumped up.
1908		Gem 17 Oct. 2: Figgins and Co are stumped too.

2. lost for ideas; thus backform. stump v., to perplex.

1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 226: I guess our great nation may be stumped to produce more eleganter liquor than this here. It’s the dandy, that’s a fact.
1847		W.T. Porter Quarter Race in Kentucky and Other Sketches 40: This question fairly ‘stump’d’ Lanty for a moment.
1850		J.C. Neal Pic-nic Sketches 205: Peleg W. Ponder, who never arrived at a conclusion, or contrived to reach a result. Pegleg is always ‘stumped’ – he ‘don’t know what to think’.
1890		J. Payn Notes from ‘News’ 73: What ‘stumps’ them is the being asked to put their own thoughts regarding any familiar matter into words.
1902		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 28 Feb. 4/3: When a Scotsman is stumped, not knowing for the life of him where and how to turn, he says, ‘in the meantime, however’.
1911		Perrysburg Jrnl (Wood Co., OK) 17 Mar. n.p.: The only time i saw jimmy ‘stumped’ for a reply was at [etc.].
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 29: I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t – I was stumped.
1929		‘Ellery Queen’ Roman Hat Mystery 180: I was stumped good and proper.
1946		J. Maclaren-Ross ‘Welsh Rabbit of Soap’ Nine Men of Soho 34: When the pubs closed I was stumped. I’d no idea what she normally did.
1951		P. Whelton Angels are Painted Fair 136: Her head shook when I had finished. ‘I’m stumped.’.
1968		J. Colebrook Cross of Lassitude 231: I’m stumped [...] I’m fit to collapse. I tell you I’ve got to find her or I’m going to have a breakdown.
1975		(con. 1900s) G. Swarthout Shootist 188: I am stumped.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 239: I’m completely stumped.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 145: I breezed though the questions, stumped only by the ‘how much’ number.