gumph en · NOUN · etymology 1
Etymology
Unknown.
Meanings
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(countable, uncountable) A foolish person; a gump.
Gump, a numscull.
1825, John Jamieson, Supplement to the Etymological dictionary of the Scottish language:‘ Tell them what, you gumph ? ’ cried Squibs. ‘ Are you all mad ? ’
1938, George Smith, The Cornhill Magazine, page 816:He strikes me as the perfect example of an intellectual gumph. He knows too much!
1919, St. John Greer Ervine, John Ferguson:If Romeo were just a lovesick gumph, occasionally falling into a deeper trance in which he speaks unaccountable poetry, then Olivier is your Romeo.
1971, Ronald Hayman, John Gielgud, New York: Random House:Drossy saw ’em in her drawer, and for all the gumph he is, he knew the writing; and I made him get ’em for me this morning while they were at breakfast.
1860, Susan Warner, Anna Bartlett Warner, Say and Seal, page 246:
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(slang, uncountable) Nonsense.
Between a couple of silent factories, beat-box music drifted over to us. Some kind of unrecognizable chart gumph; the usual mix of soul and rap.
2003 June 6, Chris Wooding, Crashing, Scholastic Point, Scholastic Paperbacks (November), pages 100-101Things had not been going will with Pino ever since he started to take Sister Apollonia’s bloated gumph as gospel. Thanks to the wacko, his man was actually getting a Christ complex.
1998 December 15, T.C. Van Adler, St. Agatha's Breast: A Novel, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN:‘It’s like listening to adolescent daughters with all their gumph and they’re going to chew you out...’
2000 April, Linda Grant, Remind Me Who I Am, Again, Granta Books, New Ed edition (July), page 266
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| gump | alternative | lexicographic | |
| gumpf | alternative | lexicographic | |
| gumphs | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| gumpth | alternative | lexicographic |