Definitions
Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word phumpher.
Examples
-
To many, Milner's success is not just too much and too fast in a land of too much and too fast but … but … and here people start to petulantly phumpher … somehow unfair: Here's an outsider who has handed out money at outrageously founder-friendly terms-paying huge amounts for relatively small stakes, essentially buying exclusive access to the most desirable companies on the web!
Wired Top Stories jmckeel 2011
danama commented on the word phumpher
A Yiddish word meaning "to mumble", most often used to mean “to be evasive”; can also mean “to putter aimlessly” or “to waste time.”
Some common spellings: 'phumpher' and 'fumpher', to a lesser extent 'pfumpher' and 'pfumpfer', and very rarely, 'pfumfer'. Never 'phumfer'. The most common is 'phumpher', followed closely by 'fumfer'.
– Allwords.com
Paddy Cheyefsky, interviewed (1977) on Dinah Shore’s old talk show: “I was interviewed in London and somebody asked me a question and it threw me completely, and so I just chattered and talked and, uh, what we call in the industry, ‘phumphered.’ I phumphered and phumphered and phumphered – I must have phumphered for twenty minutes. Fortunately they cut it down to 10 seconds and I sounded sensational.”
March 14, 2013