stub
n.the short part of something that remains after the rest has been used, broken, or removed. You might have a stub from a pencil or a ticket after you enter a show.
n.the short, remaining part of an object after the larger portion has been consumed, detached, or discarded. Often refers to the counterfoil of a cheque or ticket kept for record-keeping purposes.
“He kept the ticket stub as a souvenir from the concert.”
“After the usher scanned her ticket, she tucked the remaining stub into her wallet for her scrapbook.”
“The investigator found nothing in the ashtray but a single cigar stub, which suggested the suspect had been waiting in the office for a considerable amount of time.”
Commonly used in the context of tickets, pencils, and financial documents like cheques or pay slips.
From Middle English stubbe (“tree stump”), from Old English stybb, stubb (“tree stump”), from Proto-West Germanic stubb, from Proto-Germanic stubbaz (compare Middle Dutch stubbe, Old Norse stubbr, Faroese stubbi (“stub”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tew-; compare steep (“sharp slope”). Doublet of stob. Sense extended in Middle English to similarly shaped objects. Verb sense “strike one’s toe” is recorded 1848; “extinguish a cigarette” 1927.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.