/klʌmp/
OriginFrom Middle English clompe, from Old English clymppe, a variant of clympre (“a lump or mass of metal”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“mass, lump, clump; clasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *glembʰ- (“lump, clamp”).
Alternatively, possibly from Middle Dutch clompe or Middle Low German klumpe (compare German Klumpen). Doublet of klomp.
Cognates include Danish klump (probably from Low German as well). Compare Norwegian Bokmål klump.
- A cluster or lump; an unshaped piece or mass.
- A thick group or bunch, especially of bushes or hair.
- A dull thud.
“She [Miss Climpson] asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head.”
“Thus, the myths of cinema and syndicated cartoon have served to unite the diverse races far more than the clump of the cricket-ball and the clipped rebukes and laudations of their masters.”
- The compressed clay of coal strata.
- A small group of trees or plants.
- historicalA thick addition to the sole of a shoe.
- ambitransitiveTo form clusters or lumps.
- ambitransitiveTo gather in dense groups.
- intransitiveTo walk with heavy footfalls.
- UK, regional, transitiveTo strike; to beat.
“There is his poor little cap hanging up on the door; and there on the table is the knife he chipped a piece out of through not minding the mark on the knife machine, and I clumped his head for him, po”
Formsclumps(plural) · clumps(present, singular, third-person) · clumping(participle, present) · clumped(participle, past) · clumped(past)