▪ I. chump
(tʃʌmp)
[Of modern formation: app. a parallel form to chunk, perh. influenced in form by association with chop, or with lump, stump, clump. (Prof. Skeat compares Icel. kumbr, kubbr, a chopping, cutting, and kubba to chop.)]
1. A short thick lump of wood chopped or sawn off from timber; an end-piece.
| 1703 Moxon Mech. Exerc. 195 A Chump of Wood. 1831 Landor Misc. (1846) II. 662 While the broad chump..Strong with internal fire..heats the chamber round from morn till night. 1863 Geo. Eliot Romola ii. i, She fetched a hatchet..and showing him a chump..asked him if he would chop that up for her. 1884 Chamb. Jrnl. 18 Oct. 658/1. |
2. a. The thick blunt end of anything; also chump-end: esp. the thick end of a loin of mutton.
| 1861 Dickens Gt. Expect. I. 153 As if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something. 1880 Blackmore Mary Anerley I. vi. 64 The chump of the spine of the Wolds, which hulks up at last into Flamborough Head. |
b. Jocosely applied to the head. off his chump (vulgar): ‘off his head’, out of his senses.
| 1864 Hotten Slang Dict. 101 Chump, the head or face. 1877 Besant & Rice Son of Vulc. ii. xxiv. 377 ‘Master’, he said, ‘have gone off his chump—that's all’. 1910 Galsworthy Justice ii. ii. 42 It'll do you good, Will, to have a run with this. You seem half off your chump this morning. 1960 V. Nabokov Invit. to Beheading ix. 94 Think how unpleasant it is to have your chump lopped off. 1961 A. Wilson Old Men at Zoo vi. 287 This chap Beard seems to be off his chump. He's evacuated all the wallabies. |
3. fig. A man as unintelligent as a chump of wood; a block, blockhead (cf. block n. 15).
| 1883 H. Smart At Fault II. i. 29 Such a long-winded old chump at telling a story. 1887 Pall Mall G. 2 Feb. 10/1 Frank audibly remarked: ‘This man is a chump. I could go..this minute and do better than that’. Ibid. 23 Aug. 3/1, I told the chumps they'd get noticed if they didn't keep out of the way. |
4. chump-chop, a chop from the chump-end.
| 1883 Daily News 29 Sept. 3/6 A splendid dish of Irish stew, with a large chump chop in it. |
▸ chump change n. slang (orig. in African-American usage) a small or negligible sum of money; small change.
| 1967 ‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp xx. 285 Western whores were lazy and satisfied with making ‘*chump change’. 1977 N.Y. Times 25 May 74 The gang has stagnated... The members have become ‘surplus people’, hanging around street-corners..searching for ‘chump change’. 1988 J. Ellroy Big Nowhere xli. 394 Coleman knew he needed money to finance his killing spree, and he was only making chump change gigging on Central Avenue. 2001 Guardian 7 Feb. ii. 14/4 A quarter of a million pounds. As public spending goes, it's chump change. |
▪ II. chump, v.
[f. champ, with mimetic modification.]
To champ with a duller sound; to munch.
| 1855 Thackeray Newcomes (1887) II. xiv. 164 Sir Brian reads his letters and chumps his dry toast. |