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hump

Pronunciation: /hʌmp/
Translate hump | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of hump

noun

  • 1a rounded raised mass of earth or land: they sat on a hump of cropped grass
  • a mound over which railway vehicles are pushed so as to run by gravity over points to the required place in a marshalling yard.
  • 2a rounded protuberance found on the back of a camel or other animal or as an abnormality on the back of a person: his back rose into a kind of hump at the base of the spine

verb

  • 1 [with object and adverbial of direction] chiefly British informal carry (a heavy object) with difficulty:he continued to hump cases up and down the hotel corridor
  • 2 [with object] make hump-shaped: he turned and humped his body to avoid a rope
  • 3 [with object] vulgar slang have sexual intercourse with.
  • 4 (usually in imperative hump off) Irish informal go away.

Phrases

get (or have or give someone) the hump

British informal become, be, or make someone annoyed or moody: fans get the hump when they lose

over the hump

past the most difficult part of something: now we have reached this point we are over the hump

Derivatives

humpless

adjective

Origin:

early 18th century: probably related to Low German humpe 'hump', also to Dutch homp, Low German humpe 'lump, hunk (of bread)'

hump in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of hump in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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