gumph

plural gumphs · alternative gump · alternative gumpf · alternative gumpth

1. countableuncountableA foolish person; a gump.

   Gump, a numscull.

   1825, John Jamieson, Supplement to the Etymological dictionary of the Scottish language

   4 more examples

   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

   He strikes me as the perfect example of an intellectual gumph. He knows too much!

   1919, St. John Greer Ervine, John Ferguson

   ‘ Tell them what, you gumph ? ’ cried Squibs. ‘ Are you all mad ? ’

   1938, George Smith, The Cornhill Magazine, page 816

   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

2. slanguncountableNonsense.

   ‘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

   2 more examples

   Things 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

   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 100-101

alternative gump

1. uncountableGumption; grit.

   1955, Mathematics Teaching, Association of Teachers of Mathematics ...anyone likely to use the book would surely have enough gumph to try both before giving up.

   1 more example

   Never lifted a hand to defend himself, hadn’t got any gumph.

   a. 1923, Violet Hunt, The Coach

present singular third person gumphs · participle present gumphing · participle past gumphed · past gumphed · alternative gump

1. intransitiveTo grope, especially after fish.
2. transitiveTo catch fish by groping.