clump

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clompe (“a lump”),^[2][3][4] probably borrowed from Low German klump,^[5][6][2] which agrees in form and meaning with Middle Low German klumpe and Middle Dutch clompe (“lump, mass”), modern Dutch klomp.^[7][8][3] The American Heritage Dictionary glosses the Middle Low German word "cluster of trees", and Klein "clog, wooden shoe", properly a shoe shaped out of a lump of wood.^[5][9] The OED, in an entry not revised since 1891, finds no evidence to show whether the English word goes back with these to Old Low German or West Germanic, or was taken later from Low German.^[7] Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary derive the Middle English noun from Old English: the Middle English Dictionary from Old English clympe, and Barnhart from clympre (“lump, mass of metal”), with the influence of the Low German and Dutch words.^[3][4] The Old English noun survives in the dialect word clumper.^[8][10][11] The Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford see the word as partly imitative.^[12][13][14]

Wiktionary and Köbler reconstruct Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“mass, lump; clasp”),^[1][15] and Barnhart and Köbler trace the stem to Proto-Indo-European *glembʰ- (“lump, clamp”).^[3][15] Cognates include Danish klump and Swedish klump;^[9][16] Old Norse klumba and klubba, the source of club, show another grade of the labial.^[7][9] The OED connects this family further with Latin globus (“rounded mass, ball”),^[7] and Hoad and Klein relate it to clamp.^[8][9] The sense of a thick extra sole on a shoe comes directly from the Dutch and Low German word for a wooden shoe.^[7] The verb meaning to walk heavily is from the noun, partly with imitative changes;^[7][13][3] Etymonline calls it imitative, or perhaps from the idea of walking in wooden shoes.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A lump: about 1300, in a Middle English quotation in which a lump of ice is caught in a net.^[4][2] The Middle English Dictionary also has a plural clymppan, lumps, in a medical text perhaps of the 12th century.^[4] The modern word is first recorded about 1585, in R. Browne's Answere to Cartwright, for a cluster of trees.^[7][3][6]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the word as a shapeless piece of wood or other matter, and in 1773 added "a cluster of trees; a tuft of trees or shrubs", the definition the OED still quotes.^[17][7] The OED's first record for the general sense of a lump is a slang dictionary of 1699.^[7] The tree sense widened to any patch of growing plants, and in 1854 also to a compact group of other things or of people.^[7][13] In the 19th century the noun also came to mean a blow (1889), the heavy sound of a boot (1891), and an agglutinated mass of bacteria or blood cells (1896).^[7] The verb, to tread heavily, appears in Bunyan in 1665;^[7][6][2] the senses to heap or plant in a clump (1824) and to form clumps (1896) were made afresh from the noun.^[7][2] In dialect a clump was a misshapen lump of wood, stone or bread, from Yorkshire to Hampshire, and clump-cocks were large haycocks made in doubtful weather.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – Middle English clompe, a lump.^[4][2][3]
• c. 1585 – a cluster of trees.^[7][3][6]
• 1665 – verb, to walk heavily and clumsily.^[7][6][2]
• 1699 – a compact mass, a lump.^[7]
• 1824 – verb, to heap together or plant in a clump.^[7][2]
• 1830 – in the United States, a clump-built ship.^[7]
• 1854 – a compact group of other objects, or of people.^[7]
• 1864 – verb, to strike or punch.^[7]
• 1879 – a thick extra sole on a shoe.^[7]
• 1883 – clumps, a parlour game of questions and answers.^[7]
• 1889 – a blow, a knock.^[7]
• 1891 – a heavy clumping sound, especially of a boot.^[7]
• 1896 – a mass of agglutinated bacteria or blood cells; verb, to form clumps.^[7][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A group of trees, shrubs or plants growing close together: a clump of birches by the pond.^[19][6][7]
2. A compact group of things or people: Visitors waited in little clumps outside the gate.^[6][7]
3. An irregular compact mass; a lump: a clump of mud.^[19][6][7]
4. A mass of bacteria, blood cells or other particles stuck together by agglutination.^[19][6][7]
5. A dull, heavy tread, or a similar sound.^[19][7]
6. A thick extra sole on a shoe.^[19][7]
7. (slang) A blow.^[19][7]

Verb

1. To walk with a heavy, clumsy tread: He clumped down the stairs in his work boots.^[19][6][7]
2. To gather or form into clumps: The particles tend to clump in cold water.^[19][6][7]
3. To arrange or plant in a clump.^[6][7]
4. (colloquial) To strike or punch.^[7]

Word family

• clumpy

Related words

• club
• clamp
• clumper
• clunch

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
16. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins