Stums

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Unfermented or partly fermented grape juice used in winemaking ; plural for such juices in different batches or types
2. Liquids of crushed grapes that have not fully undergone fermentation for wine production ; referring collectively to multiple instances or varieties of this juice
3. Early-stage grape liquids before becoming alcohol, used in oenology ; different examples or collections of this unfermented or partially fermented material

Etymology: "Stums" is the plural of "stum", and the noun names grape juice that has been kept from fermenting, so it stays sweet. The word's surprising feature is that its sense comes from a word meaning silence. Dutch "stom" meant "unfermented" and, more literally, "mute" or "dull", so the wine-maker's term describes juice that has not yet started to speak, as it were, through the bubbling of fermentation. French has a close parallel in "vin muet", literally "mute wine", and German uses "stummer Wein" in the same way. English "stum" is a doublet of "shtum", the German-derived word meaning "silent", which entered English in a different form. The two words are thus cousins that share a root but reached English by separate routes, one as a winemaking term and the other as a word for keeping quiet.