chump
/t͡ʃʌmp/
chump noun: an incompetent person, a blockhead; a loser. Also the dated form of chomp.
Noun
chump (plural chumps)
- An incompetent person, a blockhead; a loser.
- That chump wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
- What chumps! Didn’t they realize that all they had to do was interpret the constitutional term “the Legislature” to mean “the people”?2015, chief justice John G. Roberts, dissenting in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al., June 29 2015
- A gullible person; a sucker; someone easily taken advantage of; someone lacking common sense.
- It shouldn't be hard to put one over on that chump.
- “Well, that's it. Let's reactivate him. Wake up!” “[Yawns] Hey, chumps and chumpettes. Did you get the bomb out? Can I go back to saying the word I love to say?” “I'm sorry, but we couldn't remove it.” “It's stuck in there with glue or something. I don't know.” “Well, this is just great. What's the...2000 November 26, Eric Horsted, “War Is the H-Word” (20:47 from the start), in Futurama, season 2, episode 17, spoken by Bender (John DiMaggio)
- The thick end, especially of a piece of wood or of a joint of meat.
- Shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something.1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Chapter X
- A person's head or face.
Verb
chump (third-person singular simple present chumps, present participle chumping, simple past and past participle chumped)
- To treat (someone) as a chump; to defraud or swindle (someone).
- Synonyms:
- chump off
Also used as
chump is also the dated form of chomp.
Synonyms of chump
Forms of chump
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | chumps |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | chumps |
| present participle | chumping |
| past participle | chumped |
| past | chumped |
Origin of chump
Origin uncertain; probably a blend of chunk and lump or stump, or perhaps a nasalised variant of chub (“someone chubby, something thick”). Compare Icelandic kubbur (“block of wood, chip (computing)”), Old Norse kumbr for kubbr (“block of wood”), English chop.
Variant of chomp, itself a variant of champ (“to bite”). More at champ.
Words formed from chump
Phrases with chump
Words that rhyme with chump
18 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about chump
- What does chump mean?
- Chump means an incompetent person, a blockhead; a loser.
- What part of speech is chump?
- Chump can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce chump?
- Chump is pronounced /t͡ʃʌmp/.
- What is the plural of chump?
- The plural of chump is chumps.
Words near chump in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chump (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-chump.ogg.
Cite this entry: “chump.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chump. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.