hump
/hʌmp/
hump noun: a mound of earth.
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Noun
hump (plural humps)
- A mound of earth.
- A speed bump or speed hump.
- A deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine.
- A rounded fleshy mass, such as on a camel or zebu.
- Fat, melted down from the hump of the camel, is suggested in an Oriental manual as an aphrodisiac aid.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 54
- Synonyms:
- bulge
- An act of sexual intercourse.
- A bad mood.
- She's got the hump with me.
- Go away! You're giving me the right hump.
- A painfully boorish person.
- That guy is such a hump!
- A wave that forms in front of an operating hovercraft and impedes progress at low speeds.
Verb
hump (third-person singular simple present humps, present participle humping, simple past and past participle humped)
- To bend something into a hump.
- The cattle were very uncomfortable, standing humped up in the bushes.1885, Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman
- To carry (something), especially with some exertion.
- For travellers have to carry bags, / And swagmen have to hump their swags / Like bottle-ohs or ragmen.1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 14
- Synonyms:
- heft
- To dry-hump.
- Stop humping the table, you sicko.
- To have sex (with).
- Synonyms:
- bang
- To exert oneself; to make an effort.
- Lessons are keeping me humping now, and will probably do so all summer.1917, Hart Crane, letter, in Complete Poems & Selected Letters, Library of America 2006
- To vex or annoy.
- Synonyms:
- bother
- To shunt wagons / freight cars over the hump in a hump yard.
- In the first phase of the new yard's operation, from March 6 last, it was wisely decided to restrict the yard's use to allow for any "teething" ailments with complex electronic gadgets, so when I visited Margam early in May it was working well below its capacity, humping about 1,000 wagons a day...1960 July, G. Freeman Allen, “Margam yard - the most modern in Europe”, in Trains Illustrated, pages 405, 407
- To botch or spoil.
- "Why, sir," said one patterer, "I've gone out with a mate to work a litany, and he's humped it in no time." To 'hump,' in street parlance, is equivalent to 'botch,' in more genteel colloquialism.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Hump
the Hump
- The Himalayas (a mountain range in Asia), as the challenge for the supply route between India and China.
- The C-47s could not make it over the Hump with a full load and full tanks.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Hump
Hump
- A diminutive of the male given names Humphrey and Humphry.
hump meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
hump in Hindi
- deformity of the human back
- कूबड़ kūbaṛ
- rounded fleshy mass as in camel's back
- कोहान kohān, कूबड़ kūbaṛ, डिल्ला ḍillā, कुब्बा kubbā
hump in Tamil
- mound of earth
- மண்மேடு maṇmēṭu, மேடு mēṭu
- deformity of the human back
- கூன் kūṉ, கூனல் kūṉal
- rounded fleshy mass as in camel's back
- திமில் timil
hump in Urdu
- deformity of the human back
- کوبڑ kūbaṛ
hump in Bengali
- deformity of the human back
- কুঁজ kũj
More languagesFewer languages
- hump in Telugu
- గూని gūni
- hump in Malayalam
- കൂന് kūnŭ
- hump in Kannada
- ಗೂನು, ಕೂನು, ಬಾಗು, ಡುಬ್ಬು
- hump in Sanskrit
- मणि maṇí
- hump in Assamese
- কুঁজ kũz, চুট sut
- hump in Pashto
- بوکام bokām
- hump in Arabic
- سَنَام sanām, حَدَبَة ḥadaba
- hump in Malay
- bonggol
- hump in Indonesian
- bungkuk, punuk
- hump in Persian
- غوز ġuz, گوژ guž, کوهان kuhân
- hump in Thai
- หนอก nɔ̀ɔk
- hump in Vietnamese
- bướu
- hump in Myanmar
- လပို့ la.pui.
Examples of hump in a sentence
- That car often scrapes the shallowest of humps because of its low ground clearance.
- All modern camels are humpbacked creatures, but the number of humps depends on the species.
- It is named camelCase because it looks a bit like the humps on a camel's back.
Synonyms of hump
Forms of hump
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | humps |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | humps |
| present participle | humping |
| past participle | humped |
| past | humped |
Origin of hump
Probably borrowed from Dutch homp (“hump, lump”) or Middle Low German hump (“heap, hill, stump”), from Old Saxon *hump (“hill, heap, thick piece”), from Proto-Germanic *humpaz (“hip, height”), from Proto-Indo-European *kumb- (“curved”). Compare Proto-Germanic *huppōną (“to hop”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewb-, *ḱewb- (unnasalised root), and English hub (a softened variant without nasal?). Cognate with West Frisian hompe (“lump, chunk”), Icelandic huppur (“flank”), Welsh cwm (“a hollow”), Latin incumbō (“to lie down”), Albanian sumbull (“round button, bud”), Ancient Greek κύμβη (kúmbē, “bowl”), Avestan 𐬑𐬎𐬨𐬠𐬀 (xumba, “pot”), Sanskrit कुम्ब (kúmba, “thick end of bone”). Replaced, and perhaps influenced by, Old English crump (“crooked, bent”). More at cramp.
Words formed from hump
- buffalo hump
- bust one's hump
- Calcutta hump
- dowager's hump
- get one's hump up
- Hampton hump
- Hampton's hump
- Harrington hump
- have one's hump up
- hummock
- humpable
- humpathon
- humpback
- humpbacked
- hump-backed
- hump day
- hump dumpling
- humpee
- humpity
- humpless
- humplike
- hump-nosed
- hump slug
- humpsore
- humpy
- hump yard
- hunk
- lowlands hump-nosed pit viper
- over the hump
- road hump
- shrump
- speed hump
- superhump
- hump and dump
- dry-hump
- hump it
- hump someone's brains out
- jump hump
- monkey humping a football
- monkeys humping a football
- wall humping
Phrases with hump
- dry hump
- hump days
- hump slugs
- hump yards
- hump dumplings
- busts one's hump
- busted one's hump
- got one's hump up
- had one's hump up
- has one's hump up
- busting one's hump
- gets one's hump up
3 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with hump
18 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about hump
- What does hump mean?
- Hump means a mound of earth.
- What is hump in Hindi?
- Hump in Hindi is कूबड़ (kūbaṛ), कोहान (kohān), डिल्ला (ḍillā). See Hump meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is hump?
- Hump can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce hump?
- Hump is pronounced /hʌmp/.
- What is the plural of hump?
- The plural of hump is humps.
Words near hump in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hump (page history and authors); Hump (page history and authors); hump (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); मणि (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-hump.ogg, En-au-Hump.ogg.
Cite this entry: “hump.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hump. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.