gump
/ɡʌmp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.02 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A surname.
phrase
Acronym of gas (fuel), undercarriage (landing gear), mixture (fuel mixture), prop (propeller setting); a mnemonic for landing an airplane; particularly propeller-propelled carburated powered one with a retractable landing gear.
Example Sentences
- "[…] the young ignorant gump hearing his father or mother who perhaps may be ten times more ignorant, in point of literature than himself, extoling his learning, struts about in the full assurance, that his attainments in literature are sufficient to take him through the world, when in fact, he has scarcely any learning at all!!"
- "[…] I’d no idee of going to be shot at for money, like these ’ere fools and gumps that goes down to the Florida swamps, to be shot at all day by Ingens, for eighteen pence a day."
- "Low, coarse, undiscerning simpletons, they are all animal sensibility, and have not yet developed the ability to pick truth from error, reality from show, and fraud out of its fine garments of honesty; gumps and boobies, they are pleased with a rattle and tickled with a straw."
- "Every fond mama is gump enough to think that every Greek god she sees looks like her own boy, even if her own happens to squint and have two teeth missing―which mine hasn’t, thanks the Lord!"
- "“I’m a gump, Keith,” he exclaimed. “Someone ought to kick me. I never was so plumb mistook in all of my born days.”"
- "The toad stared balefully at his reflection and puffed himself up to show that he wasn't really frightened. "'Tis thou, thou gump," grinned Catweazle evilly, and put Touchwood down on the soap dish."
Etymology
Perhaps related to gumption. The term long pre-dates the slow-witted character from the 1994 film Forrest Gump.
Usage
- Uncountable
- American usage
- Countable
- Dated
- Slang