humpback

plural humpbacks · alternative hump-back

1. A humped back (deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine).

   He saw Dmitri half rise from his chair so that the shadow of his humpback shifted on the whitewashed wall.

   1948, Philip Gibbs, chapter 5, in Behind the Curtain, Toronto: The Ryerson Press

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   […] the Stone in my Fathers Body was so immense, that I’ve wonder’d it did not bunch up behind, and make him have a Hump-back, or at least overpoise him in walking, and drag him backward with its incredible weight.

   1691, John Dunton, chapter 6, in A Voyage Round the World, London: Richard Newcome, page 122

   In the Male Line, there happened an unlucky Accident in the Reign of Richard the Third; the eldest Son of Philip, then Chief of the Family, being born with an Hump-back and very high Nose.

   1709 October 1, Richard Steele, “The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.”, in The Tatler, volume 2, number 75, London, published 1712, page 166

   Diana Vernon, the most beautiful creature I ever beheld, in love with him, the bandy-legged, bull-necked, limping scoundrel!—Richard the Third in all but his hump-back!

   1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter [XI], in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 272

   […] Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countess of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 63, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

   1. broadlyA hump or protuberance on the shoulders or back of an animal.

      […] the cows stood about with gloomy eyes and hump-backs, surly and dangerous […]

      1902, Somerset Maugham, chapter 16, in Mrs Craddock, London: Heinemann, published 1955, page 157

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      On the bare hills one begins to see unfamiliar silhouettes of animals against the sky. […] the peaked humpbacks of gnu on a ridge […]

      1969, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “Immersion in Life”, in Earth Shine, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, page 52

   2. figurativelyA rounded topographical feature, such as a mountain or hill.

      I could see clear out to the humpbacks of small islands along the great lake, where small banks of fog hung.

      2002, Michael Collins, chapter 38, in The Resurrectionists, Penguin, published 2006, page 286

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      1858, Royal B. Stratton, Captivity of the Oatman Girls, San Francisco: [for the author], Chapter 4, p. 134, On either side were the high, irregularly sloped mountains, with their foot hills robed in the same bright green as the valley, and with their bald hump-backs and sharp peaks, treeless, verdureless, and desolate […]

      The Goons kept appearing and disappearing in different places, always closer to them, as they worked their way over the humpback of the terrain.

      1968, Barry England, Figures in a Landscape, New York: Random House, Part 1, p. 78

2. derogatoryoffensiveA person with a humpback; a person who suffers from kyphosis.

   […] I stared up at the raw spots on his cheek and thought, there is no safety anywhere: a humpback, a cripple—they all have the trigger that sets love off.

   1951, Graham Greene, The End of the Affair, Penguin, published 1975, Book 2, Chapter 7, p. 81

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   […] Tom’s more specific and kindly impressions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike toward him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue.

   1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 2, Chapter 6

   Synonyms: crookback, hunchback

3. A humpback whale.
4. A humpback salmon.

present singular third person humpbacks · participle present humpbacking · participle past humpbacked · past humpbacked · alternative hump-back

1. To hunt humpback whales.

   The captain of the James Rodgers […] was an old hand at humpbacking […]

   1895, Charles Nordhoff, chapter 10, in Whaling and Fishing, New York: Dodd, Mead, page 191

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   […] the Alice Knowles […] did her whaling in the south Atlantic, by turns humpbacking off the African coast and cruising around Tristan in season.

   1953, Emma Mayhew Whiting, Henry Beetle Hough, chapter 16, in Whaling Wives, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 240