Gamp, n.
(gæmp)
[after Mrs. Sarah Gamp, a monthly nurse in Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit, who carried a large cotton umbrella.]
1. A woman resembling Mrs. Gamp; a monthly nurse or sick nurse of a disreputable class.
| 1864 Sun 28 Dec. 2/6 ‘A regular Gamp’, meaning thereby..a fat old dowdy of a monthly nurse, or a very large, bulgy, loosely tied cotton umbrella. 1889 A. R. Hope in Boy's Own Paper 3 Aug. 697/2 She was a trained hospital nurse of the class that is fast driving last generation's Sally Gamps out of the field. |
2. An umbrella,
esp. one tied up in a loose, untidy fashion.
| 1864 [See 1]. 1883 G. R. Sims Lifeboat, etc., Midsummer Day, He donned his goloshes, and shouldered his gamp. 1887 J. Ashby-Sterry Lazy Minstrel (1892) 134, I trust your Gamp is water-tight! |
| attrib. 1881 Macm. Mag. XLV. 62 Grasping his gamp umbrella at the middle. |