Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An irregularly shaped mass or piece.
- n. A small cube of sugar.
- n. Pathology A swelling or small palpable mass.
- n. A collection or totality; an aggregate.
- n. A person regarded as ungainly or dull-witted.
- n. Informal Severe punishment or treatment, as a beating or an unsparing criticism: take one's lumps.
- n. Informal One's just deserts; comeuppance: get one's lumps.
- adj. Formed into lumps: lump sugar.
- adj. Not broken or divided into parts: a lump payment.
- v. To put together in a single group without discrimination.
- v. To move with heavy clumsiness.
- v. To make into lumps.
- v. To become lumpy.
- v. To move heavily.
- idiom. lump in (one's) throat A feeling of constriction in the throat caused by emotion.
- v. Informal To tolerate (what must be endured): like it or lump it.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small mass; a relatively small aggregation or conglomeration of solid matter without regular form: as, a lump of ore, clay, or dough; to melt a number of coins into one lump.
- n. A protuberant part; a knob, bunch, or swelling: as, a lump raised on the head by a blow.
- n. A blow.
- n. A dull, stolid person.
- n. In firearms
- n. The nipple-seat on the barrel.
- n. In a break-joint breech-loader, an iron block on the barrel which descends into a recess in the action.
- n. A bloom or loupe of malleable iron.
- To make into a mass; combine in a body or gross sum without distinction of particulars.
- To take in the lump, or collectively in the gross; consider or dispose of in the gross.
- To beat severely.
- To act as a lumper; be employed in loading or unloading ships, as a stevedore.
- n. The lump-fish.
- To look sullen or glum; sulk.
- To take without choice; take “anyhow”: a word in itself of no definite signification, used in the expression “if you don't like it, you may lump it.”
- n. In mining, a coarse fragment of ore, coal, phosphate rock, or any useful mineral, as contrasted with the fines, spalls, or otherwise designated smaller pieces.
- Noting the coarser grade of bituminous coal which is picked out as it comes from the mine.
- To appear larger by aggregation; bulk: as, he lumped large in public imagination.
Wiktionary
- n. Something that protrudes, sticks out, or sticks together; a cluster or blob; a mound, hill, or group.
- n. A group, set, or unit.
- n. A small, shaped mass of sugar, typically about a teaspoonful.
- n. A dull or lazy person.
- n. informal, as plural A beating or verbal abuse.
- v. To treat as a single unit; to group together.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small mass of matter of irregular shape; an irregular or shapeless mass
- n. A mass or aggregation of things.
- n. (Firearms) A projection beneath the breech end of a gun barrel.
- v. To throw into a mass; to unite in a body or sum without distinction of particulars.
- v. To take in the gross; to speak of collectively.
- v. Low To get along with as one can, although displeased.
WordNet 3.0
- v. group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side
- n. an awkward stupid person
- n. a large piece of something without definite shape
- n. an abnormal protuberance or localized enlargement
- v. put together indiscriminately
- n. a compact mass
Etymologies
- Middle English lumpe. Confer German Lumpen ("rag") and Lump ("ragamuffin") (Wiktionary)
- Middle English lumpe, of Low German origin; akin to obsolete Dutch lompe.Perhaps from dialectal lump, to look sullen. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Should that fail, I have no doubt that it will remain a testament to the culinary incompetence of one man, a man whose name will be lost to history many years after the apocalypse when the mysterious lump is unearthed by puzzled scientists.”
“Once the lump is found, you jump on that merry-go-round of terrifying medical intervention.”
The Huffington Post: Christina Pirello: Real Things You Can Do to Prevent Breast Cancer
“Sometimes a lump is just a lump … hope so in this case.”
“North Lanarkshire Council has spent almost £2m on early retirement and severance since 2007, while Scottish Enterprise (SE) paid over £20m in lump sums.”
“The additional six lakhs of rupees resulting from the Durand agreement were paid in lump sum once per year on 12 November.”
Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier
“A thyroid scan will show how well the thyroid absorbs iodine, which can help doctors determine if the lump is benign or cancerous.”
“My conjoined twin lump gots my back, no matter what.”
“Boomers, by contrast, are the first generation whose principal retirement assets will come in lump sums from 401 (k) - type plans.”
“I mean a suspicious lump is a suspicious lump even if it is hanging out in a “dense” breast.”
“Still I could see viewing the films that the lump is still there and has gotten just a wee bit bigger.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lump’.
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LIT - Ulysses - key words and phrases
vanish, number one, archangel, commodious, dominie, rubble, glisten, morose, spindle, ventilation, Blessed, christian and 503 more...
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Imprecise Units of Measurement
A list of terms for units of measurement that are less than exact, such as dessert-spoonful.
two shakes, dessert-spoonful, a pinch, a bit, some, smidge, smidgin, dollop, drop, fleck, smack, sprinkling and 187 more...
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songbirds
Names of girls in song titles. Not in the lyrics, just in the titles.
Just the name on the list, then the full title with any identifying notes in the comments, please.
Can be the same ...marianne, evie, lady d'arbanville, peggy sue, suzanne, dianne, boni maroni, miss molly, lola, mony, sadie, rita and 206 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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multiple meaning words
These words seem very familiar but are awfully-versatile and oftentimes serve senses exceptionally beyond people's presumptions ...
sense, serve, please, say, profile, draw, weather, bear, project, ship, profiler, tune and 140 more...
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Units Of Anything
Descriptions of when more than one thing is present. Usually proceeding the word "of"
Example: "Pile" of Junkunit, pile, horde, group, slew, crowd, bunch, set, heap, nest, gross, glut and 21 more...
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Mr. Prolagus is surprised
Words - or different usages of words I already knew - that I am learning thanks to Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.
See also ofravens' with thanks to Anne Shirley.alder, decorum, ferret, dint, wont, gauntlet, turnip, sorrel, deft, embower, scant, peck and 92 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, L
lisle, lahar, loupe, labret, latten, luster, lagomorph, lamentation, limicole, lunge, lobtail, latifolious and 182 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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2011 July
New words
correspondent, promulgate, transgress, trite, ravine, corespondent, contrivance, contrive, expedient, conducive, clairvoyance, difform and 184 more...
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Wrapped up in books
I'm reading books. And there are words and phrases I come upon for the first time, or that are used with usages that are new to me.
So, this is just a plain list of those words. Don't expect ...hobble, mackerel, crone, cavort, hoyden, rheumy, scatter, hiss, recoil, trundle, shatter, flaxen and 200 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lump.

lampbane "Lump lingered last in line for brains
and the one she got was sorta rotten and insane
Small things so sad that birds could land
Is lump fast asleep or rockin' out with the band?" Jan 3, 2007