gump

Perhaps related to gumption. The term long pre-dates the slow-witted character from the 1994 film Forrest Gump.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʌmp/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmp
• Homophone: Gump

gump (plural gumps)

1. (US, dated) A foolish person.

   Synonyms: dunce, fool, nitwit

   • 1829, David Walker, Walker’s Appeal‎, Boston: for the author, page 33:

     […] 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!!

   • 1839, Charles Edwards Lester, Chains and Freedom: or, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wheeler, a Colored Man Yet Living‎, New York: E. S. Arnold, Book 2, Chapter 3, pp. 225-226:

     […] 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.

   • 1893, Frederic Scrimshaw, chapter 36, in The Dogs and the Fleas‎, Chicago: Douglas McCallum, page 222:

     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.

   • 1913, Edna Ferber, chapter 1, in Roast Beef, Medium‎, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, page 18:

     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!

   • 1925, T. C. Bridges, chapter 31, in The River Riders: An Exciting Lumberjack Story‎, London and New York: Frederick Warne:

     “I’m a gump, Keith,” he exclaimed. “Someone ought to kick me. I never was so plumb mistook in all of my born days.”

   • 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 22:

     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.

2. (Baltimore, District of Columbia, slang) A weak or soft person.
   • 2006, George Pelecanos & Ed Burns, “That's Got His Own” (34:40 from the start), in The Wire, season 4, episode 12, spoken by Kenard (Thuliso Dingwall):

     Namond Brice (Julito McCullum): Yo, where the package at man?
     Kenard (Thuliso Dingwall): Package up my ass, gump!
     Namond Brice (Julito McCullum): Yo, I'm 'bout to-
     Kenard (Thuliso Dingwall): You're 'bout to! Go on, walk, gump-ass motherfucker!

• gump stump

• “gump”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• IPA^(key): /ɡɵmp/

gump c

1. rump