clump
/klʌmp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.94 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The compressed clay of coal strata.
Example Sentences
- "There are suitable clumps of gorse a little way back, sir. I anticipate that you would be quite safe there, or I would not suggest it, sir."
- "clump of trees"
- "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."
- "clump-burned bricks"
- "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, poor lamb!"
Etymology
From 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: clompe, clymppe, *klumpô, *glembʰ-, klumpe
Usage
- Intransitive verb
- British usage
- Transitive verb