▪ I. bump, n.1
(bʌmp)
[Belongs to bump v.1 Onomatopœic: the v. and n. of action being probably coeval. App. the order was bump v. to knock, and bump n. a knock; hence as n. a swelling protuberance caused by a blow, and as v. to swell or rise in a protuberance; but the historical record is not very complete. Cf. bounce, thump, etc. Also as a parallel instance of an onomatopœia combining the two senses ‘sudden blow’ and ‘swelling’ cf. bunch.]
I. 1. a. A blow somewhat heavy, but rather dull in sound; a sudden collision, more or less violent. So with a bump (fig.), abruptly, with a shock.
| 1611 Cotgr., Adot, a blow, bumpe, or thumpe. 1768–78 Tucker Lt. Nat. II. 149 An unlucky bump upon the head [might have] rendered him stupid. 1862 Smiles Engineers III. 10 When the pump descends, there is heard a plunge, a heavy sigh, and a loud bump. 1882 Lett. in Royal Acad. Catal. (1883) 95 It went into the ditch with a bump. 1920 O. W. Holmes Let. 6 Apr. in Holmes-Laski Lett. (1953) I. 259, I must go in 5 minutes to a conference of the JJ and therefore run down with a bump. 1935 W. G. Hardy Father Abraham i. viii. 111 His mood of exaltation fell with a bump into the trough of melancholy. 1955 E. Hillary High Adventure ix. 171, I came back to full consciousness with a bump. |
b. (See quots.)
| 1883 Gresley Gloss. Coal-m., Bump, a very sudden breaking, sometimes accompanied by a settling down, or upheaval of, the strata, during the working away of the mineral, accompanied by a loud report or bumping noise heard in the mine. 1893 Trans. Fed. Instit. Mining Eng. V. 381 A bump (or earth explosion) occurred on November 5th, 1892. 1960 Times (S. Afr. Suppl.) 31 May p. xviii/1 That was a ‘bump’, a subterranean movement caused mainly by the settling of strata disturbed by mining activity. |
c. Cricket. The rise of a ball from the pitch to a greater height than is usual. Cf. bump v.1 2 b.
| 1901 R. H. Lyttelton Out-door Games i. 31 A man who plays fairly straight,..and can meet the ball with the bat when it comes on straight with no hang or bump. |
d. Aeronaut. An air-pocket.
| 1914 Rosher In R.N.A.S. (1916) 15 While flying at 200 feet, the machine suddenly bumped [note, met an airwave]... These bumps are due to the sun's action on the air and are called ‘sun bumps’. 1918 E. M. Roberts Flying Fighter 279 When correcting bumps or small erratic air currents one has often to resort to his inclinometer. |
e. slang. Usu. in pl. An uneven landing of an aeroplane.
| 1943 Hunt & Pringle Service Slang 19 Bumps, the touching down of the aircraft during landing due to uneven ground or bad handling. 1958 ‘N. Shute’ Rainbow & Rose v. 207 Rather than keep him at the dreary round of circuits and bumps I had been teaching him aerobatics. |
f. The action of thrusting forward the abdomen or hips in a dance or the like. (Cf. grind n.1 5.) slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1946 Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues vi. 75 She [a dancer] went through her whole routine, bumps and grinds and shakes and breaks. 1964 Punch 26 Aug. 295/2 Sing a song..and do a bump-and-grind routine. |
2. Boating. The impact of the stem of a boat against the stern or side of another boat in front of it: in boat-racing at the English Universities, the making of a ‘bump’ is the technical proof of one boat's overtaking and beating another.
| 1861 Hughes Tom Brown Oxf. I. xiv. 282 A bump now and no mistake; the bow of the St. Ambrose boat jams the oar of the Oriel stroke. 1884 Sat. Rev., College Life 12 July 47/1 An unexpected bump in May. |
II. Swelling.
3. A protuberance such as is caused by a blow or collision; a swelling, an irregular prominence.
| 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. i. iii. 53 It had upon it brow, a bumpe as big as a young Cockrels stone; a perilous knock. 1611 Cotgr., Angonailles, botches, (pockie) bumps or sores. Ibid. Bigne, a bumpe, knob, rising, or swelling after a knocke. a 1700 Dryden (J.) Not though..in bumps his forehead rise. 1825–7 Hone Every-day Bk. II. 1016, I sat upon a small knoll, surrounded by curves and bumps. |
4. transf. One of the prominences on the cranium associated by phrenologists with special mental faculties and propensities; sometimes used for the faculties, etc., themselves. (colloq.)
| 1815 Edin. Rev. XXV. 251 The aforesaid bumps on the head are..signs of peculiar energy, in some of the special faculties. 1863 Kingsley Water-bab. iv. 165 She felt his bumps, and cast his nativity. Mod. I never knew anyone so deficient in the bump of locality. |
5. Phr. like a bump on a log: stupidly silent or inarticulate. colloq. (orig. and chiefly U.S.).
| 1863 ‘Mark Twain’ Mark Twain of Enterprise (1957) ii. xvi. 103 You have been sitting there for thirty days like a bump on a log, and you never rightly understand anything. 1922 S. Lewis Babbitt xviii. 226 With that he drove on and left the fellow standing there in the road like a bump on a log! 1935 N. L. McClung Clearing in West xxxii. 280 You couldn't expect her to sit there like a bump on a log, Mrs. Mooney. |
III. Comb., as bump-ball Cricket, a ball hit hard upon the ground close to the bat, coming with a long hop to the fieldsman, and having the specious appearance of a catch; also (erron.) bum(-ball); bump-car = Dodgem; bump-stick, a tool used by shoe-makers for smoothing soles (= sleek-stick); bump-supper, a supper given to celebrate the making of a ‘bump’ by a college boat (see 2); bump-up, a sudden increase (cf. bump v.1 1 d).
| 1867 Australasian 9 Mar. 300/4 The apparent sincerity of a..wicket-keeper, when appealing for a ‘leg before’, or a ‘bum’. 1870 Marlburian 8 June 58/2 Woollcombe..was caught off what appeared to be a ‘bum ball’. 1877 C. Box Eng. Game Cricket 444 Bump ball, a ball caught after it has bounded from the ground. 1963 Times 18 Feb. 10/2 When an appeal was made the umpire ruled that it was a bump ball. |
| 1937 Hull & Whitlock Far-distant Oxus xx. 276 The six wandered off to have turns on the bump cars. |
| 1725 Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Box, It [Boxwood] makes also..Bump-Sticks and Dressers for Shoemakers. |
| 1853 ‘C. Bede’ Adv. Verdant Green x. 94 A Bump-supper,—that is,.. a supper to commemorate the fact of the boat of one college having, in the annual races, bumped, or touched the boat of another college. 1940 J. Buchan Memory Hold-the-Door iii. 61 Raymond [Asquith] wrote the poem,..On a Viscount who died on the Morrow of a Bump Supper. |
| 1958 Economist 13 Sept. 819/1 They are excited because of the bump-up in their support and by-election votes this year. |
Add: [III.] bump-start v. trans. = push-start s.v. push-; also transf.; also bump-started ppl. a., bump-starting vbl. n.
| 1972 Bike Spring 26/3 Three or four tries usually got it going except in the extreme Welsh cold when *bumpstarting was the only solution to the motor's grumpiness. 1978 R. Westall Devil on Road xiii. 96, I kicked her over till my leg seized up. Tried bump-starting her. 1980 Dirt Bike Oct. 4/2 You park your bike on top of a hill, so you can bump-start it, instead of kickstarting. 1987 Guardian 6 Feb. 12/3 Woe..for Granny Weatherwax, all set with witchly role-conditioning and her bump-started broomstick! |
▸ colloq. (orig. Brit.). The protruding abdomen of a visibly pregnant woman; (hence) an unborn child.
| 1986 Times 14 Jan. 12/7 The old idea was to hide ‘the bump’ under voluminous maternity dresses. 1999 C. Grimshaw Provocation xvii. 267 Harry..wiped his hands on his kiddie jeans and leaned against her and the bump, his sibling-to-be. 2005 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 13 Mar. ix. 1/3 Brides are not only not hiding their pregnancies, but they are showing them off,..wearing gowns that flatter their bump. |
▸ slang. A small dose of a recreational drug, typically one which is inhaled as a powder. Cf. hit n. 1b.
| 1985 D. Bodey F.N.G. 172 How about a quick bump off that bowl? 1999 M. Silcott Rave Amer. vi. 178 You need to take two pills. Three pills. Four pills, the content of a vial, half a blotter, and a few bumps. 2000 K. Reichs Deadly Décisions xx. 165 When they popped me I was holding six bumps of meth. 2005 Guardian (Nexis) 10 Oct. (G2 section) 36, I took some bumps of coke. |
▪ II. bump, n.2
[f. bump v.2]
The cry of the bittern.
| a 1528 Skelton Poems 227 (L.) The bitter with his bump, The crane with his trump. |
▪ III. bump, n.3
(bʌmp)
[Origin unknown.]
a. A kind of matting used for covering floors. b. A material composed of cotton threads loosely twisted together (formerly also refuse flax) used for candlewicks, also woven for making coarse sheets; attrib. in bump-sheet, also bump-mill, a factory where this fabric is manufactured.
| 1881 Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 68 Bump Mill Worker. 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §36 5 Spinner, bump mill..spins candle wick yarn from coarse cotton waste. |
▪ IV. bump, v.1
[see bump n.1]
I. To strike heavily or firmly.
1. trans. † a. generally. To strike heavily, knock, thump. Obs. b. To impinge heavily upon; of persons, to push (a heavy body) violently against, or on any object; to hurt (one's head, one's knee, etc.) by knocking against a hard object (sometimes const. against, on); to strike or knock with anything heavy and bulky; to seize (a person) by the arms and legs, and strike his posteriors against a wall, tree, etc. spec. in Services' slang: to explode (a mine or mine-field); to shell.
| 1611 Cotgr., Baculer, to bumpe on the Posteriorums with a Bat. 1768 Tucker Lt. Nat. I. 471 That antagonist, whom he bumps and pummels so furiously. 1815 Scott Guy M. iv, We bumped ashore a hundred kegs. 1842 Tennyson Epic 12, I bump'd the ice into three several stars. a 1888 Mod. I bumped my head on the low ceiling. Several boys were ‘bumped’ against this wall at the beating of the bounds. 1915 ‘Bartimeus’ Tall Ship ix. 160 We haven't bumped a mine-field. Ibid. 168 The chance of ‘bumping a mine’. 1919 Athenæum 1 Aug. 695/2 An artilleryman speaks of having ‘bumped’ a certain town or spot, meaning shelled. |
c. to bump off: to remove by violence; to kill. Also ellipt., to bump. slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1910 W. M. Raine B. O'Connor 117 I've got several good reasons why I don't aim to get bumped off just yet. 1914 Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Slang 21 He copped a cuter and got bumped making a get-away. 1927 Cleveland Press 29 Jan., Senator Thomas J. Heflin..informed his colleagues that a thug had threatened to ‘bump him off’. 1927 C. F. Coe Me—Gangster iii. 52 Who bumped that poor chump that was drivin' the car? 1930 Punch 16 Apr. 442 Jimmy is duly bumped off. 1932 E. Waugh Black Mischief vii. 266 They had two shots at bumping me off yesterday. 1943 P. Cheyney You can always Duck xii. 186 You didn't want him..to know you had bumped Clemensky. 1958 Hayward & Harari tr. Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago i. vii. 212 A few were bumped off by way of example. |
d. to bump up: to increase or raise (prices, etc.) suddenly. colloq.
| 1940 N. Mitford Pigeon Pie xii. 192 Olga bumps up his allowance every time he horsewhips anybody for making a pass at her. 1958 Spectator 10 Jan. 42/2 It is wise at night to look out for places which bump up the prices without warning. |
2. a. intr. To strike solidly, to come with a bump or violent jolt against; to move with a bump or a succession of bumps. Naut. see quot. 1844.
| a 1843 Southey Lodore 94 Thumping and flumping and bumping and jumping. 1844 Mrs. Houston Yacht Voy. Texas II. 150 The extremely heavy swell on the bar, which..materially increases the chance of a vessel's ‘bumping’; a term the Americans use for touching on the sand banks. 1857 Holland Bay Path xxv. 301 His heart bumped So heavily against the walls of his chest. 1860 Merc. Mar. Mag. VII. 305 She bumped several times..losing her false keel. 1885 M. D. Chalmers Law Times LXXX. 191/1 Due to the cask bumping against the cellar wall. |
b. Cricket. Of a ball: to rise abruptly to an unusual height.
| 1863 Baily's Mag. June 257 At one time the ball would hit a batsman on the ribs, another time bump up and fly yards over his head. 1871 Ibid. June 172 There was an ugly place where the ball bumped near the north wicket. 1882 Pardon Australians in England 173 Bates was caught, a bumping ball from Spofforth going off the shoulder of his bat. 1888 W. G. Grace in Steel & Lyttelton Cricket 310 Emmett was in his glory, his bowling bumping and kicking up as I have never seen it since. 1891 ― Cricket 130 The first ball..bumped and hit him on the head. 1929 Times 24 May 6/1 A pitch which, apart from the fact that two or three balls bumped in the afternoon, was beautifully easy. |
c. Chem. ‘To give off vapour intermittently and with almost explosive violence’ (Cent. Dict. 1889). Cf. bumping vbl. n. 2.
| 1883 Encycl. Brit. XVI. 32/2 Mercury ‘bumps’ badly on boiling. Ibid. 195/2 Methyl-alcohol has quite a characteristic tendency to ‘bump’ badly on distillation. 1950 P. J. Durrant Org. Chem. iii. 64 As the pressure of a boiling liquid is lowered, the tendency to ‘bump’ is greatly increased. |
d. Aeronaut. To move irregularly owing to an inequality of air pressure.
| 1914 [see bump n.1 1 d]. |
e. to bump into: to meet (a person) by chance, to run into (a person). colloq.
| [1886 ‘P. Perkins’ Fam. Lett. 22 Went down those old stairs lickety-wallup, and bumped into that old party who was evidently running for the..station.] 1953 W. P. McGivern Big Heat ii. 24 We just bumped into each other on Market Street. 1958 E. Dundy Dud Avocado i. v. 82 What a mad coincidence bumping into John. |
3. trans. Boat-racing. To overtake and impinge on (the boat in front). Also absol.= ‘make a bump’: see bump n.1 2. (In the boat-races at the English Universities, a boat which bumps another changes place with it in the order of boats on the river.)
| 1826 Lit. Lounger 222 in Oxf. Mag. [Extra No.] 18 May 1887, 2/2 Christ Church bumps her. Ibid. 3/1, I never thought of her bumping the Exeter. 1850 Kingsley Alt. Locke xiii. 105 Having, as he informed me, ‘bumped the first Trinity’. 1861 Hughes Tom Brown Oxf. I. xiv. 276 Colleges, whose boats have no chance of bumping or being bumped. |
4. a. To dismiss from a position; to take the position of another, spec. by exercising the right to displace a less senior member of an organization (e.g. after being displaced from one's own job). U.S.
| [1915 Dialect Notes IV. 224 Bump, v.t., to reject; esp., in college slang, to reject a fraternity's ‘bid’.] 1918 Ibid. V. 23 To bump, vb. t., to dismiss from service. General. 1941 Boston Daily Globe 3 Jan. 20 Joe Begin is working on the section for the C.P.R. here, having bumped Romeo Lavallee. Romeo then bumped Henri Carrier, who was working at Camp 12, and Henri, having no one to bump, is out of work pro temps. 1943 Amer. Speech XVIII. 163/1 When a crew is deprived of its assignment, as when a train is removed from the timetable, its members select the jobs they wish among those held by others with less seniority—this is called bumping. 1972 Fortune Jan. 148/1 Agreement has also been reached with the unions to cut down on the costly practice of unqualified workers ‘bumping’ experienced employees in different job classifications who have lower seniority. 1980 Washington Star 20 Jan. g1 Has Iowa bumped New Hampshire as the first state to say which way the wind is blowing in the presidential election? |
b. To deprive (a passenger) of a reserved place on an airline flight, esp. after deliberate overbooking. Also transf. Freq. in pass. orig. U.S.
| 1947 Funk & Wagnalls New College Stand. Dict. 157/1 Bump.., to deprive (a passenger) of airplane transportation in favor of a later but more important traveler. 1969 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 11 Mar. 6/2 No bumping—arbitrary cancellation by senior authority of someone's reservation—is allowed ‘except in emergencies or exceptional circumstances’. 1978 Observer 30 July 3/1 They were blandly told that their flight was full. In other words, they had been ‘bumped’. 1984 Daily Tel. 4 May 18/1 Fifty passengers were turned away (or ‘bumped’) at Barbados this week by British Airways. 1986 Flight 27 Dec. 15/4 Engle was bumped off the crew [of Apollo 17] by geologist Jack Schmitt. |
II. To bulge out.
† 5. intr. To rise in protuberances, to bulge out, to be convex. Obs.
| 1566 [see bumping ppl. a.]. 1579 J. Studley Seneca's Hippolytus (1581) 71 His..necke With..knobby curnels hie out bumping big do swell. 1597 Gerard Herbal (1633) 1299 (L.) Long fruite..with kernels bumping out. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1021 Of the round line that part which is..without doth bumpe and bunch. |
† 6. trans. To make protuberant, cause to swell up.
| 1662 J. Bargrave Pope Alex. VII (1867) 120 Another triangular, unequilateral, bumped-up, large loadstone. 1719 D'Urfey Pills I. 187 He bumpt up our Bellies. |
7. trans. Printing. to bump out: To spread out the matter of a book, article, or the like (by wide spacing, arrangement of page, etc.), so as to make it fill the desired number of pages.
| 1885 Bookseller 6 July 49/1 The text had been so ingeniously bumped out by the publishers that it filled twice the number of pages it should have done. |
III. 8. Watchmaking: see quot.
| 1884 F. J. Britten Watch & Clockm. 246 ‘Bumping’ wheels, i.e. altering the plane of the teeth with relation to the hole. |
IV. 9. The verb stem used adverbially = With a bump, with sudden collision; bump, bump, with repeated shocks of contact on the part of a heavy moving body.
| 1806 Bloomfield Wild Flowers Poems (1845) 217 Bump in his hat the shillings tumbled. 1863 Kingsley Water-bab. i. 47 As he came bump, stump, jump, down the steep. Mod. The carriage went bump, bump, over the sleepers. |
▪ V. bump, v.2
[Of echoic origin: cf. boom v.]
A word used to express the cry of the bittern.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 173 A Bittor maketh that mugient noyse, or as we terme it Bumping. a 1700 Dryden Wife of Bath 194 As a bittour bumps within a reed. |