hump
/hʌmp/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms humps humping humped the Hump
- noun A mound of earth.
- noun A speed bump or speed hump.
- noun A deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine.
- noun A rounded fleshy mass, such as on a camel or zebu.
- noun (vulgar slang) An act of sexual intercourse.
- noun (UK slang, with the) A bad mood. “She's got the hump with me.”
- noun (slang) A painfully boorish person. “That guy is such a hump!”
- noun A wave that forms in front of an operating hovercraft and impedes progress at low speeds.
- verb (transitive) To bend something into a hump.
- verb (ambitransitive) To carry (something), especially with some exertion.
- verb To dry-hump. “Stop humping the table, you sicko.”
- verb To have sex (with).
- verb (dated US slang) To exert oneself; to make an effort.
- verb (dated slang) To vex or annoy.
- verb (rail transport) To shunt wagons / freight cars over the hump in a hump yard.
- verb (transitive, obsolete UK slang) To botch or spoil.
- proper noun (historical, World War II, slang) The Himalayas (a mountain range in Asia), as the challenge for the supply route between India and China. “The C-47s could not make it over the Hump with a full load and full tanks.”
- proper noun A diminutive of the male given names Humphrey and Humphry.
Synonyms
gibbous humpback hunch hunchback bulge heft bang bother shoulder tote trek walk bone ride shag copulate with irk rile hike bump swelling gibbosity gibbousness jut prominence protuberance protrusion extrusion excrescence hunch forward
Etymology
Probably borrowed from Dutch homp (“hump, lump”) or Middle Low German hump (“heap, hill, stump”), from Old Saxon *hump (“hill, heap, thick piece”), from Proto-Germanic *humpaz (“hip, height”), from Proto-Indo-European *kumb- (“curved”). Compare Proto-Germanic *huppōną (“to hop”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewb-, *ḱewb- (unnasalised root), and English hub (a softened variant without nasal?).
Cognate with West Frisian hompe (“lump, chunk”), Icelandic huppur (“flank”), Welsh cwm (“a hollow”), Latin incumbō (“to lie down”), Albanian sumbull (“round button, bud”), Ancient Greek κύμβη (kúmbē, “bowl”), Avestan 𐬑𐬎𐬨𐬠𐬀 (xumba, “pot”), Sanskrit कुम्ब (kúmba, “thick end of bone”). Replaced, and perhaps influenced by, Old English crump (“crooked, bent”). More at cramp.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A protuberance; especially, the protuberance formed by a crooked back.
- noun A fleshy protuberance on the back of an animal, as a camel or whale.
Etymology [Cf. D. homp a lump, LG. hump heap, hill, stump, possibly akin to E. heap. Cf. Hunch.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hump”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details