Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An irregularly shaped mass or piece.
  • noun A small cube of sugar.
  • noun Medicine A swelling or small palpable mass.
  • noun A collection or totality; an aggregate.
  • noun A person regarded as ungainly or dull-witted.
  • noun Severe punishment or treatment, as a beating or an unsparing criticism.
  • noun One's just deserts; comeuppance.
  • adjective Formed into lumps.
  • adjective Not broken or divided into parts.
  • intransitive verb To put together in a single group without discrimination.
  • intransitive verb To move with heavy clumsiness.
  • intransitive verb To make into lumps.
  • intransitive verb To become lumpy.
  • intransitive verb To move heavily.
  • idiom (lump in (one's) throat) A feeling of constriction in the throat caused by emotion.
  • transitive verb To tolerate (what must be endured).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun A protuberant part; a knob, bunch, or swelling: as, a lump raised on the head by a blow.
  • noun A blow.
  • noun A dull, stolid person.
  • noun In firearms
  • noun The nipple-seat on the barrel.
  • noun In a break-joint breech-loader, an iron block on the barrel which descends into a recess in the action.
  • noun A bloom or loupe of malleable iron.
  • To appear larger by aggregation; bulk: as, he lumped large in public imagination.
  • 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.
  • 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.”
  • To look sullen or glum; sulk.
  • noun The lump-fish.
  • noun 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To throw into a mass; to unite in a body or sum without distinction of particulars.
  • intransitive verb To take in the gross; to speak of collectively.
  • intransitive verb Low To get along with as one can, although displeased.
  • noun A small mass of matter of irregular shape; an irregular or shapeless mass
  • noun A mass or aggregation of things.
  • noun (Firearms) A projection beneath the breech end of a gun barrel.
  • noun the whole together; in gross.
  • noun coal in large lumps; -- the largest size brought from the mine.
  • noun a single sum paid once in satisfaction of a claim, as contrasted with the alternate choice of several payments over a period of time; -- sometimes allowed, e.g., as an alternative to periodical pension payments for a lifetime.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something that protrudes, sticks out, or sticks together; a cluster or blob; a mound, hill, or group.
  • noun A group, set, or unit.
  • noun A small, shaped mass of sugar, typically about a teaspoonful.
  • noun A dull or lazy person.
  • noun informal, as plural A beating or verbal abuse.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English lumpe, of Low German origin; akin to obsolete Dutch lompe.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps from dialectal lump, to look sullen.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English lumpe. Confer German Lumpen ("rag") and Lump ("ragamuffin")

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Examples

Comments

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  • "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?"

    January 3, 2007