Word.ws English Dictionary

clump

/klʌmp/

clump noun: a cluster or lump; an unshaped piece or mass.

Noun

clump (plural clumps)

  1. A cluster or lump; an unshaped piece or mass.
  2. (collective) A thick group or bunch, especially of bushes or hair.
    • There are suitable clumps of gorse a little way back, sir. I anticipate that you would be quite safe there, or I would not suggest it, sir.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
    • clump of trees1954, Lucian Hobart Ryland (translator), Adelaide of Brunswick (originally by Marquis de Sade)
  3. (collective) A small group of trees or other plants growing together.
  4. A dull thud.
    • She [Miss Climpson] asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head.1927, Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death
    • Thus, the myths of cinema and syndicated cartoon have served to unite the diverse races far more than the clump of the cricket-ball and the clipped rebukes and laudations of their masters.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 37
  5. The compressed clay of coal strata.
    • clump-burned bricks1837, The Magazine of Domestic Economy
  6. (historical) A thick addition to the sole of a shoe.

Verb

clump (third-person singular simple present clumps, present participle clumping, simple past and past participle clumped)

  1. (ambitransitive) To form clusters or lumps.
  2. (ambitransitive) To gather in dense groups.
  3. (intransitive) To walk with heavy footfalls.
  4. (UK, regional, transitive) To strike; to beat.
    • There is his poor little cap hanging up on the door; and there on the table is the knife he chipped a piece out of through not minding the mark on the knife machine, and I clumped his head for him, poor lamb!1912, Mrs. Coulson Kernahan, The Go-Between, page 79

clump meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

clump in Tamil

மரங்கள் அல்லது செடிகளின் அடர்த்தியான, சிறிய கூட்டம், குவியல், கும்பல், கட்டி

clump in Urdu

ڈلا, گٹھا

clump in Bengali

গাছ, ঝোপের গুচ্ছ, ভারী পদশব্দ

clump in Malayalam

സമൂഹം, പാദപതനശബ്ദം, ഗണം, മരക്കൂട്ടം, തോപ്പ്
More languagesFewer languages
clump in Kannada
ಗಂಟಿಕೆ, ತೋಪು, ತೋಹು, ಗುಂಪು
clump in Sanskrit
स्तिभि stíbhi

Examples of clump in a sentence

  • Mary screened the beans to remove the clumps of gravel.
  • On the rock walls, there are several clumps of northern rock-cress.
  • I found a clump of amolilla and dug some of the roots, scraping them into hot water.

All 40 example sentences with clump

Forms of clump

Noun
pluralclumps
Verb
third-person singular presentclumps
present participleclumping
past participleclumped
pastclumped

Plural of clump: clumps

Origin of clump

From Middle English clompe, from Old English clymppe, a variant of clympre (“a lump or mass of metal”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpô (“mass, lump, clump; clasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *glembʰ- (“lump, clamp”). Alternatively, possibly from Middle Dutch clompe or Middle Low German klumpe (compare German Klumpen). Doublet of klomp. Cognates include Danish klump (probably from Low German as well). Compare Norwegian Bokmål klump.

Words formed from clump

Phrases with clump

Words that rhyme with clump

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about clump

What does clump mean?
Clump means a cluster or lump; an unshaped piece or mass.
What is clump in Tamil?
Clump in Tamil is மரங்கள் அல்லது செடிகளின் அடர்த்தியான, சிறிய கூட்டம், குவியல். See Clump meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is clump?
Clump can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce clump?
Clump is pronounced /klʌmp/.
What is the plural of clump?
The plural of clump is clumps.

Words near clump in the dictionary

  1. clumb
  2. clumber
  3. clumber spaniel
  4. Clumber spaniels
  5. Clumbers
  6. clump
  7. clump block
  8. clump blocks
  9. clump up
  10. clumpable
  11. clumped

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clump (page history and authors); clump (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clump (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clump (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clump (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clump (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); स्तिभि (Sanskrit) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-clump.ogg.

Cite this entry: “clump.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clump. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.