plump

comparative plumper · comparative more plump · superlative plumpest · superlative most plump

1. Having a full and rounded shape; chubby, somewhat overweight.

   a plump baby; plump cheeks

   3 more examples

   The god of wine did his plump clusters bring.

   1651, Thomas Carew, To my friend G. N. from Wrest

   My ideal is to be idle and to love a plump girl.

   2015, Anton Chekhov, The Life and Genius of Anton Chekhov: Letters, Diary, Reminiscences and Biography: Assorted Collection of Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned Russian Author and Playwright of Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and The Seagull, e-artnow, →ISBN

   He was a plump little man and we had been walking uphill at a pace—set by him—far too rapid for his short legs. He breathed stertorously, and half the drops which glimmered on his rotund face were not rain but sweat.

   1956, Delano Ames, chapter 23, in Crime out of Mind

   Synonyms: round

2. Sudden and without reservation; blunt; direct; downright.

   I've said so haven't I? Plump and plain.

   1925, Stanley John Weyman, Queen's Folly

   2 more examples

   We are averse to plump queries, but we are going to ask our readers a plain, simple question Did you ever see a paper y'clept "The Yankee Blade?"

   1847, editorial staff, “The Yankee Blade”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 3, Issue 9, page 66

   After the plump statement that the author was at Erceldoune and spake with Thomas.

   1898, George Saintsbury, “XXXVII The Dullards That Men Are”, in A Short History of English Literature

3. beveragesOf a wine: giving the sensation of filling the mouth.

   A plump wine, with an abundance of plum and berry characteristics and soft, round tannins. Easy to drink; ready on release.

   1992, The Wine Spectator, volume 17, page 33

present singular third person plumps · participle present plumping · participle past plumped · past plumped

1. intransitiveTo grow plump; to swell out.

   Her cheeks have plumped.

2. transitiveTo make plump; to fill (out) or support; often with up.

   to plump oysters or scallops by placing them in fresh or brackish water

   2 more examples

   to plump up the hollowness of their history with improbable miracles

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

   Although Miss Pross, through her long association with a French family, might have known as much of their language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that direction […] So her manner of marketing was to plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the nature of an article […]

   1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC

3. intransitiveTo give a plumper (kind of vote).
4. transitiveTo give (a vote), as a plumper.
5. intransitiveTo favor or decide in favor of.

   A recent poll by the New York Times found that although most Brazilians plump for arch-rival Argentina as the team they most want to lose, the second-biggest group want Brazil itself to stumble.

   2014, “Brazil in a nutshell”, in The Economist

present singular third person plumps · participle present plumping · participle past plumped · past plumped

1. transitiveTo cast or let drop (something) all at once, suddenly and heavily.

   to plump a stone into water

2. intransitiveTo drop or fall suddenly or heavily, all at once.

   September 24, 1712, The Spectator No. 492, letter from a prude Dulcissa plumps into a chair.

   Synonyms: slump

1. Directly; suddenly; perpendicularly.

   I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman’s discretion?

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 49, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 253

plural plumps

1. The sound of a sudden heavy fall.

   As she beheld her, poor Mrs. Mack's heart fluttered up to her mouth, and then dropped with a dreadful plump, into the pit of her stomach.

   1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

plural plumps

1. obsoleteA knot or cluster; a group; a crowd.

   a plump of trees, fowls, or spears

   1 more example

   To visit islands and the plumps of men.

   1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC

2. collectiveA group of ducks or geese migrating, or sometimes other groups of birds.

   A "plump" of ducks rose at the same time and took the route to the north in the wake of their noisier cousins

   1893, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Or, Life in the Woods, Houghton Miffler, page 483

   3 more examples

   What Descartes called res cogitans is not a defined res but a network, a swarm, a cloud, much like a plump of geese flying south or ants foraging around their woodlands.

   2022, Martin Kornberger, Strategies for Distributed and Collective Action: Connecting the Dots, Oxford University Press, page 100

   A great example of professionalism in aviation: on the afternoon of January 15, 2009, in the middle of wintertime, a big plump of geese were flying south, getting off of the strong cold weather.

   2020, Jaime Fernandez, The Fascinating World of Aviation, Page Publishing

   On this account, the Kestrel is often seen in the winter months hovering near the farmyards, in hopes of making a successful dash among a plump of sparrows as they congregate over some fresh straw, or settle among the fowls for the purpose of picking up the grain which was intended for the poultry.

   1831, John George Wood, The Illustrated Natural History: Birds. 1864, Routledge, Warne and Routledge, page 80

plural Plumps

1. A surname from German.