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Bump   Listen
noun
Bump  n.  
1.
A thump; a heavy blow.
2.
A swelling or prominence, resulting from a bump or blow; a protuberance. "It had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone."
3.
(Phren.) One of the protuberances on the cranium which are associated with distinct faculties or affections of the mind; as, the bump of "veneration;" the bump of "acquisitiveness." (Colloq.)
4.
The act of striking the stern of the boat in advance with the prow of the boat following. (Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bump" Quotes from Famous Books



... "James had a bump like an egg over his ear last night," Aunt Selina insisted, glaring at Flannigan's unconscious back. "I don't think it's safe to leave him. It is my time to relax for thirty minutes, or I would watch him. You will have to stay," she said, fixing ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... be only one result following Chunky's unexpected tactics. Mr. Redskin flattened himself on the ground prone upon his face. Somehow the fellow was slightly stunned by the fall, not having had time to save himself from a violent bump ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... yards they will also stop, and, with raised wings, spin around rapidly for some time after until quite giddy, when a broken leg occasionally occurs.... Vicious cocks 'roll' when challenging to fight or when wooing the hen. The cock will suddenly bump down on to his knees (the ankle-joint), open his wings, and then swing them alternately backward and forward, as if on a pivot.... While rolling, every feather over the whole body is on end, and the plumes are open, like a large white fan. At such a time the bird sees very imperfectly, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... clustered in the pilot's cabin felt a gentle bump as the Sea Hound settled on the submerged plateau. Tom relaxed at the controls but kept the rotors going so the craft would remain submerged. Meanwhile, the sonarman ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... were constantly being brought up. Then on foot they made better progress, though no advance could be made without the most strenuous labour. The brittle crust would hold for a pace or two, and then let them down with a bump, while now and again a leg went down a crack in the hard ice underneath. So [Page 361] far, since arriving among the disturbances, which increased rapidly towards the end of the march, they had not ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... yere bump party might have gone wrong in his wagers a heap of times; but he shorely calls the turn on Jack when he says he's ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Spurzheim and Gall discover the organ of this name in a bump behind the ears, and say it is remarkably ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... personality. Undoubtedly the easiest way of doing this is by the creation of a host of rival personalities—hence the number and the popularity of novels. Whenever a novelist fails his book is said to flag; that is, the reader suddenly (as in skating) comes bump down upon his own personality, and curses the unskilful author. No lack of characters and continual motion is the easiest recipe for a novel, which, like a beggar, should always be kept 'moving on.' Nobody knew this better than Fielding, whose novels, like most good ones, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... without one green blade is uncanny. Its listening loneliness almost frightens one. Brurrhh! One must find a greenwood where things are companionable: birds within call, butterflies in waiting, and a bee now and again to bump one, and be off again with a grumbled 'Beg your pardon. Confound you!' So presently imagine me 'prone at the foot of yonder' sappy chestnut, nice little cushions of moss around me, one for Whisper, one for a pillow; above, a world of luminous green leaves, filtered sunlight lying about ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... "it means a fly guy that's wise to the all-night push—see? It's a hot sport that you can't bump to the rail anywhere between the Flatirons—see? I guess that's about what ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... the straining, and then—a final snap! Back we go, sheering helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters, and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of gratitude to the deity ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... apparition of prophecy charged to announce the maiden of the Lord for whom I was seeking. However, his brief flushed question was not of these things. He desired first to ask the time of day, and next—here, after a bump to the earth, one's thoughts ballooned again heavenwards—"had I seen a green copy of Shelley lying anywhere ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... inshore, I would often find the water fairly alive with large sun-jellies or Aurelia,—their Latin name. Their great milky-white bodies would come heaving along and bump against me, giving a very "crawly" sensation. The circle of short tentacles and the four horse-shoe-shaped ovaries distinguish this jelly-fish from all others. When I had gone down as far as I dared, I would sometimes catch glimpses ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... recollection of receiving a blow on the jaw, and subsequently lying on the flat of your back with my knees jouncing up and down on your stomach while your bump of amativeness was being roughly and somewhat regularly pounded against the wall in response to a certain nervous and uncontrollable movement of my hands which happened to be squeezing your windpipe so tightly that your tongue hung ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... to reply. Was Rawson out of his mind? He could not be sure. Certainly he had got an awful bump, but there were no bones broken. However, it might be that he was still dazed—a crack on the head might ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... as easy as anything; I don't see how he did it," she said, coming down with a bump after vainly attempting ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... jounce off when you go over a bump," cried Dunston Porter to Phil and Belle, who sat at ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... much to do that I have little time for writing. The way the children wear out their shoes and stockings, the speed with which their hair grows, the way they bump their heads and pinch their fingers, and the insatiable demand for stories, is something next to miraculous. Not a day passes that somebody doesn't need something bought; that somebody else doesn't choke itself, and that I don't have to tell stories till I feel my intellect reduced to the size of ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... of the five dollars comforted her. Casting one final look at the table, which was far from uninvitingly set, she slipped out and I was left to contemplate the dozen or so photographs that covered the walls. I found them so atrocious and their arrangement so distracting to my bump of order, which is of a pronounced character, that I finally shut my eyes on the whole scene, and in this attitude began to piece my thoughts together. But before I had proceeded far, steps were heard in the shop, and the next moment the door ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... sail; and thereby managed to knock a hole in the side of the boat, which at once began to take in water. This compelled us to desist and fall to baling with might and main, leaving the raffle and jagged end of the mast to bump against us at the will of the waves. In short, we were in a highly unpleasant predicament, when a coble or row-boat, carrying one small lug-sail, hove out of the dusk to our assistance. It was manned by a crew of three, of whom the master (though we had scarce light enough ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... to bump both your silly heads together," Rachael exclaimed, steering them toward the porch. "Yes, you bring the car around, Kent," she added to one of the onlookers in an urgent aside. "Come on, Bill? get in. Get in, Clarence! Don't be an ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... Mr. Joseph and I had fallen together, no one need have been the wiser; but that lumbering arm-chair had come down with a bump that startled the sober trio at supper in ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... it appeared as if the son and heir of the Stebbins family had decided to take his mother's advice. The car suddenly slowed up—so suddenly as to slide us out of our seats. There was a grinding of brakes, and a bump of something under the wheels; then a wild stream from the sidewalk, and a half-stifled cry from the chauffeur. Mrs. Stebbins gasped, "Oh, my God!" and put her hands over her face; and Lucinda exclaimed, in outraged ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... in the morning, slightly misty and very quiet Passing Fort Sumter, then Fort Moultrie, we rounded a low break-water, and attempted to take the channel. I have heard a half-dozen reasons why we struck; but all I venture to affirm is that we did strike. There was a bump; we hoped it was the last:—there was another; we hoped again:—there was a third; we stopped. The wheels rolled and surged, bringing the fine sand from the bottom and changing the green waters to yellow; but the Columbia remained inert ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... "From the noise everybody is making, I guess we're there. For goodness' sake, Nan!" she exclaimed as her chum switched her suitcase from one hand to the other, so that it would be between Bess and herself, "don't bump that bag into me—especially right behind the knees. You are apt to make me ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... cried; "another bump like that and the old thing'll split in two. Now, then, we'll drop the paddles and slip her along the bridge to the bank. There's a hole under that birch tree there, and some fine young birches that will do for rods back of it. Doesn't the birch make you feel ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... all dressing for dinner," one said, "when we heard a shouting on deck. Almost immediately there was a great bump, which knocked most of us off our feet, and we thought that we had been run into, but directly afterwards we heard a great tumult going on above us, and we guessed that the ship had been attacked by pirates. The clashing of swords and the ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... loggerheads, the story may end badly. Still, what love passages there are shall be left intact. There shall be no trickery. There shall be no running breathless, flushed, eager-eyed, to the very gateway of Love's garden, only to bump one's nose against that baffling, impregnable, stone-wall phrase of "let us draw a veil, dear reader." This is the story of the love of a man for a woman, a mother for her son, and a boy for a girl. And there shall ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... see an excellent example of this in a luggage train in a railway station, when the trucks are left to bump each other till they stop. You will see three or four trucks knock together, then they will pass the shock on to the four in front, while they themselves bound back and separate as far as their chains will let them: the next ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... got at least part of it. "Why, that means that anybody can bump off any diplomat he doesn't like...." ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... through bright eyes that, not looking very deeply into things, shone as they looked at the handsome Carl and twinkled with fun as a certainly portly youth with shaking cheeks rode past bumpetty, bumpetty, bump! ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... interpreter Anders secured. The dreaded "middle passage," near the head of Baffin's Bay, was made in the remarkably short space of fifty hours, and, passing Cape York into the North Water, they entered Smith's Sound without having received more than a passing bump—an Arctic kiss as ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... A crash and a bump and a squeal told it to her all at once. She had slid clear off, getting an instantaneous effect of her haughty sister unsupported at a dizzy eminence, before Split came bumping down to earth, the see-saw giving that regal head a parting, stunning tap as ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... was the reply; "I've got a great bump on the back of my head, and burst all the buttons off my waistcoat—I don't know whether you call that being injured; but I can tell you I got away from the Thugs at Strangleabad ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... held out. Anyhow, those punks are way overrated. Tricky, maybe, and they lie good. They'd rather bump you off ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt

... from above, like the breaking of a dead tree. We looked up. A large object—an animal—was whirling outward and downward from a ledge that projected half-way up the cliff. In an instant it struck the earth, head foremost, with a loud 'bump,' and, bounding to the height of several feet, came back with a somersault on ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... two breathless rabbits came scuttering away down Bull Banks, half carrying half dragging a sack between them, bumpetty bump over the grass. They reached home safely and burst into ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter

... is a smash!" declared Sam, as he stood on the bank, holding the hands of Freddie and Flossie. "Dey suah did bump ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite pour l'amour de Dieu! crick-crack-crick-crack; crick, crick, crick; bump, jolt, crack, bump, crick-crack; round the corner, up the narrow street, down the paved hill on the other side; in the gutter; bump, bump; jolt, jog, crick, crick, crick; crack, crack, crack; into the shop-windows on the left-hand side of the street, preliminary to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... with her and return their fire," exclaimed Rodney, as Mrs. Merrick left the room and moved along the wide hall toward the front door. "I'll not stay here like a bump on a log and let her be shot ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... the brain of the army. Its limbs go swinging by at all hours, in battalions and brigades, or at the trot, with a jingle of bits and scabbards, or at the walk, with bump and clank, as the gun wheels clear the ruts. It is the infantry—that fills the eye—fine, big stuff, man for man the biggest infantry in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... cried the sailor in a voice that proved he was excited by his novel experience. "You might bump me in the nose." ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... of Sanger," said Yan, "behold I take three straws. That long one is for the Great Woodpecker, the middle size is for Little Beaver, and the short thick one with the bump on the end and a crack on top is Sappy. Now I will stack them up in a bunch and let them fall, then whichever way they point we must go, for this ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... had run out to the sidewalk. Remembering instructions, and following them faithfully, Rackliff speeded up the engine or slowed it down, as he desired, and soon his confidence rose. One of the street crossings gave him a bump that nearly threw him off, but he was prepared for the next, and took it easily. In a brief time he had covered the course laid out for him by his friend, and found himself back at Hooker's home, where he promptly shut off the gas, switched the spark, and, a ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... tree, and from it, near the ground, projected a blackish bole. McKay was very sure the protuberance had not been there before. He had stared steadily at that tree more than once, and its shape was quite clear in his mind. Was that bump an insensate wood growth now revealed for the first time by ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... which Ellen shuddered sympathetically; a dose which was always followed by two marshmallows, out of a tin box, by way of consolation. But further than this she dared not go, except in the matter of mugs of milk, gingerbread, saucer-pies, and motherly kisses for any bump or bruise. ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris

... along the route. Again and again, an unexpected twist would bang his throbbing head against the adamantine sides, and with a wince, a sharp, in-drawn breath, he would hold himself "together" for one more bump! ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... dramatic descriptions of things which I cannot but recognise. M. S—-, with his pince- nez, the Doctor, and, above all, the rapids of the Ogowe, rolling his hands round and round each other and clashing them forward with a descriptive ejaculation of "Whish, flash, bum, bum, bump," and then comes what evidently represents a terrific fight for life against terrific odds. Wish to goodness I knew French, for wishing to see these rapids, I cannot help feeling anxious and worried at not fully understanding this dramatic entertainment regarding them. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... is, scraped to the requisite thinness, and made supple by rubbing with the brains of the animal that wore it. They are sewed together with sinews of the buffalo, generally of the long and powerful muscle that holds up the ponderous head of the shaggy beast, a narrow strip running towards the bump. In summer the lower edges of the skin are rolled up, and the wind blowing through, it is a cool, shady retreat. In winter everything is closed, and I know of no more comfortable place than a well-made Indian lodge. The army tent known as ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... of the car hurt Monte's arm a good deal. In fact, with every bump he felt as if Hamilton were prodding his shoulder with a stiletto. Besides being unpleasant, this told rapidly on his strength, and that was dangerous. Above all things, he must remain conscious. Hamilton was quiet because he thought Monte still had the gun and was ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... miles from camp, and Faye met me there with an ambulance. I was glad enough to get away from that old stage. It was one of the jerky, bob-back-and-forth kind that pitches you off the seat every five minutes. The first two or three times you bump heads with the passenger sitting opposite, you can smile and apologize with some grace, but after a while your hat will not stay in place and your head becomes sensitive, and finally, you discover that the passenger ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... 1. 13. One man learns Mathematics more easily than another, in common language, he has a turn for Mathematics, i e something in his mental conformation answers to that science The Phrenologist shows the bump denoting this aptitude. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... [obs3][N. Am.], thank-ye-ma'am [U.S.]. swell. intumescence; tumour[Brit], tumor; tubercle, tuberosity[Anat]; excrescence; hump, hunch, bunch. boss, embossment, hub, hubble [convex body parts] tooth[U.S.], knob, elbow, process, apophysis[obs3], condyle, bulb, node, nodule, nodosity[obs3], tongue, dorsum, bump, clump; sugar loaf &c. (sharpness) 253; bow; mamelon[obs3]; molar; belly, corporation|!, pot belly, gut[coll]; withers, back, shoulder, lip, flange. [convexities on skin] pimple, zit [slang]; wen, wheel, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... his hands and knees, and before he knew it he was at the head of the stairs. Then, just how no one could say, Trouble gave a yell, toppled off Teddy's back and the next instant went rolling down the flight, bump, bump, bumping at ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis

... tramping and tramping along, and thought to himself how he could get a morsel for breakfast at the very top of the morning, and so he thought and thought among the boughs and branches, till he, too, went bump—head over ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

... had not been for your sake, I should have done with him long ago. He seems to think the world ought to be at his feet. Depend upon it, Japhet, there is no hurry about seeing him;—and see him you shall not, until we have every proof of your identity ready to produce to him. I hope you have the bump of veneration strong, Japhet, and plenty of filial duty, or you will be kicked out of the house in a week. D—n me, if he didn't call me an old thief ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... 'Bell's bump of locality is immense. There are nineteen bends in the shore exactly like that one before we reach the landing. How many knots an hour do you suppose this ship travels, my ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of his fall was not far short of thirty feet, and he brought up with a bump which left him not breath enough to squeal. The ground was soft, however, with undergrowth and debris, and he had no bones broken. In a couple of minutes he was busy licking himself all over to make sure he was undamaged. Reassured on this point, he went prowling in ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... animation, "they've got the Secretary safe aboard the lugger, and they seem to be clearing the decks for action. Here is my dear Lieutenant returning; tall even among tall men. Look at him. He's in a great hurry, yet so polite, and doesn't want to bump against anybody. And now, Dorothy, don't you be afraid. I shall prove a perfect model of diffidence. You will be proud of me when you learn with what timidity I pronounce prunes and prism. I think I must languish a little at him. I don't know quite how it's done, but in old ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... what you always say when I grow tired of talking about myself and want to turn my attention to you. Perhaps that was the reason why I took to you as I did—because you let me talk about myself? All at once we seemed like old friends. There were no angles about you against which I could bump myself, no pins that pricked. There was something soft about your whole person, and you overflowed with that tact which only well-educated people know how to show. You never made a noise when you came home late at night or got up early in the morning. You ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... they say," remarked Hal flippantly, "the nurse ought to be arrested for trying to bump a sixty-horsepower ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... squeak uttered every ten or fifteen seconds. You stop, perhaps search with your eye the remote hillside, but you are looking too far afield. Glance toward the tumbled rock piles, look at every high point. There on top of one you note a little gray lump, like a bump of moss, the size of your fist, clinging to the point of the rock. Fix your glasses on it, and you will see plainly that the squeak is made by this tiny creature, like a quarter-grown Rabbit with short, round, white-rimmed ears and no visible tail. This is the curious little animal that cannot ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and active. The laugh was repeated, this time from behind a writing-table in quite another part of the room. Something which sounded like a shower of tintacks then fell into the grate; after which there was a long pause, and then a terrific bump, as if some heavy body had fallen from a great height on to the floor immediately in front of me. I even heard the hissing and whizzing the body made in its descent as it cut its passage through the air. Again there came an interval of tranquillity broken only by the ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... set Mr. Dick's detective bump to throbbing furiously. He reassured me by announcing that he hadn't said any more to Kathy, but that he'd thought a lot. In fact, he thought so much that he asked if she'd give him a line of introduction to Madame, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... stand there, like a pile driver that has been run into by an engine. They teeter up and down a little, and then fly off on a tangent, and they flop around in unexpected places among the other dancers, jump like a box car, bump against other couples, and at every bump they are driven closer together, until they are so near that it does seem as though they will have to be pried apart with a handspike; they look into each other's eyes as though they would bite, and they keep ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... the plane under the guidance of Jack, whose experience in handling the great craft well fitted him for the task. With scarcely a bump the machine rested in a little grade not far from a brook overshadowed by the arching ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... me, choking back his tears and brightening up, but just then the balloon ran into a cross-current, turned half around and lay over. This set him swinging back and forth, and he fetched the canvas another bump. Then ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... forgetfulness, I attempted to sit up in my berth, and gave my head a great bump on grandma's berth. On the third night out we had a heavy gale, and one of our sails was blown away with a noise like that of ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... which Van Amburgh is attached, and which, the fat boy told me, is about three times the size of his own—Van Amburgh taking always upwards of a dozen cages of his wild beasts. The work, he says, is very hard, but the money comes in pretty freely, which I can readily believe, as the bump of Inquisitiveness grows here with a luxuriance unknown elsewhere, and is only exceeded by its sister bump of Acquisitiveness, which two organs constitute audience ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... getting warm!" cried Theodore Roosevelt, and ran toward his horse, when boom! came another explosion, and one of the bullets fell upon his wrist, making, as he himself says, "a bump about as big as a hickory nut." This same shell, he adds, wounded four of the men under him and two or three regulars, one of whom lost his leg. Certainly another providential escape on the part of the ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... mine, no, no, I have more years than you, Sir Father, and understand what Women are, especially when married to ancient Men, and have the Conversation of young Men—whose Eyes like Basilisks destroy Modesty with looking on 'em; the very Thought on't has rais'd a Bump in my ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts and drawings of A— are multiplied, and the bump does not lose in the act of copying—I did not say it gained. —What do you look for so? (to ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... Khas is dead.' Meantime Grish Chunder De talked hastily and much to Tallantire, after the manner of those who are 'more English than the English,'—of Oxford and 'home,' with much curious book-knowledge of bump-suppers, cricket-matches, hunting-runs, and other unholy sports of the alien. 'We must get these fellows in hand,' he said once or twice uneasily; 'get them well in hand, and drive them on a tight rein. No use, you know, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... elated that his eyebrows dilated and his eyes smiled. "I've brought myself," he added, with vehemence, "some men to take it away; I won't let them recklessly bump it about." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... took farewell of the Betsey there last winter," he said. "The night had worn late, and was pitch dark; we could see before us scarce the length of our bowsprit; not a single light twinkled from the shore; and, in taking the bay, we ran bump on the skerry, and stuck fast. The water came rushing in, and covered over the cabin-floor. I had Mrs. Swanson and my little daughter aboard with me, with one of our servant-maids who had become attached to the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... them; when, therefore, we were set upon a sand-bank, or pressed by the wind on the sunken trees, he always whistled; that was all he could do, and in proportion as the danger became more imminent, so did he whistle the louder, until the affair was decided by a bump or a crash, and then he ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... and tell him to batter the door down. I would rather bump myself into eternity down that hallway," flung out Adam Craig passionately, banging his fist upon the arm of the wheel-chair, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... West Wind suddenly puffed out her cheeks and blew so hard that she blew a big stick right out of the bottom of the old nest. Down it fell bumpity-bump on the branches of the Great Pine. After it fell—what do you think? Why, hickory nuts and chestnuts and acorns and hazel nuts, such a lot ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess

... said impatiently, and had to bear Scotty's knowing grin. Scotty knew that Rick's bump of curiosity was ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... say that Blank, being a man of an original turn of mind, with the decorative bump strongly developed, holds what are at present peculiar views upon wall papers, room tones, and so on. The day is dark and gloomy, yet once within the halls of Blank there ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... Starlight came through the vacated manholes; but before Ledyard could jump out, the boat was hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and carried on a run overland. The creak of a door slammed open. A bump as the boat dumped down to soft floor; and Ledyard was dazzled by a glare of light to find himself in the mess room of the Russian barracks on Captain Harbor, in the presence of two bearded Russian hunters ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... the chestnut-trees,—too intimate, for almost every day in the summer he would bring in one, until he nearly discouraged them. He was, indeed, a superb hunter, and would have been a devastating one, if his bump of destructiveness had not been offset by a bump of moderation. There was very little of the brutality of the lower animals about him; I don't think he enjoyed rats for themselves, but he knew his business, and for the first few months of his residence with us he waged an awful campaign ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... a great similarity in these two games, because in each the head, and the head alone, is the object aimed at. In the one case the defeated party went away with a pretty severe bump on his head, and in the other he hies him to a surgeon to have his nose fixed on, or his cheek ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn

... started out for Coney Iland. Settin' right along side of me in the keer wuz an old lady, and she seemed sort of figity 'bout somethin' or other, and finaly she sed to me "mister, do these cars stop when we git on the other side of the bridge?" I sed, wall now if they don't you'll git the durndest bump you ever ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart

... soon, either; for as I reaches up he topples toward me, as limp as a sack of flour. I was fieldin' my position well for an amateur; for I gathers him in on the fly, slides him down head first with only a bump or two, and stretches him out on the rug. It's only a near-faint, though, and after a drink of water and a sniff at Aunty's smellin' salts he's able to be helped onto a couch ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... and why did the telegraph wires go up and down as if they were always making curtsies? and was that really mother opposite, or was it Cinderella's fairy godmother? And all of a sudden Milly came bump up against a tall blue mountain that had a face like a man, and cried out when she bumped ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... anticipations of fun, and perchance a 'row.' His master noticed him trimming a sapling into a splendid 'shillelagh,' with a slender handle and heavy head as ever did execution in a faction fight upon Emerald soil. The very word election had excited his bump of combativeness. But, alas! the little stumpy street was dull and empty as usual; not even the embryo of a mob; no flaring post-bills soliciting votes; the majesty of the people and of the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... cuffs. Beneath the vest, a glowing, watermelon-pink shirt glared forth from the protection of a purple tie. A wonderful creation was on his head, dented in four places, each separated with almost mathematical precision. Below the cuffs of the trousers were bright, tan, bump-toed shoes. Harry was a complete picture of sartorial elegance, according to his own dreams. What was more, to complete it all, upon the third finger of his right hand was a diamond, bulbous and yellow and throwing off a dull radiance ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... lingered for a long moment or two at the port. In his mind the Cargo-master apprentice was feverishly running over the list of general trade goods. What did they carry which would make a suitable and intriguing gift for a small alien with such a promising bump of curiosity? If he had only time to ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... mother he's ceased to love," Todd said, coming inside. "He said he'd quit the old home and was moving his goods up to Wolf Creek for keeps. And with that fat tow-headed Gimpke girl sitting on the frisky bay colt as unconcerned as a bump on a log, it was the funniest ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... slowly until he faced the greater crowd behind him. Several times he lifted his right hand and struck out with it, shaking his head with the vigor of his utterance. ("His voice," said the "Advertiser's" report, "rumbles and bangs like a bowling-alley on Saturday night. There was a big bump every time a sentence rumbled down the hall and struck the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... something which has more or less semblance to a waltz. The mode in which these rings are formed is at once simple and efficacious. Any couple who feel disposed to dance link themselves together and begin to bump themselves against their immediate neighbors. These accept the intimation with the most perfect good-humor, and assist in shoving back those behind them. A space is thus gained in the first instance barely enough for the original couple to gyrate in. But by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... he went into the house, Braesig slipped out of his hiding-place in the cherry-tree, and clinging with both hands to the lowest branch, let his legs dangle in the air, and shouted: "Here he is!" Bump! He came down on the ground, and stood before the lovers with an expression on his red face which seemed to say that he considered himself a competent judge on even the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... labor is light and the morning is fair, I find it a pleasure beyond all compare To hitch up my nag and go hurrying down And take Katie May for a ride into town; For bumpety-bump goes the wagon, But tra-la-la-la our lay. There's joy in a song as we rattle along In the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... himself to his circumstances, trusting to absence for that diminution of affection which it often produces. Having settled these points in his mind, he began to grope that part of his head which had come in contact with Owen Connor's cudgel. He had strong surmises that a bump existed, and on examining, he found that a powerful organ of self-esteem had ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... everything. Mr. Brewster had agreements with all the dealers to the effect that they were to buy everything back at a fair price, if he desired to give up his establishment within a year. He adhered to this rule in all cases that called for the purchase outright of substantial necessities. The bump of calculativeness in Monty Brewster's head was growing ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... Stas did not lack a desire to witness a fight between giants, but he feared for Nell. If the elephant started on a full run, the palanquin might be wrecked, and what is worse, the huge beast might bump it against a bough, and then Nell's life would be in terrible danger. Stas knew from descriptions of hunts which he had read in Port Said that the tiger-hunters in India fear, more than the tigers, that the ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the salient if I take that one," he said more to himself than to them, but one little fellow, catching the word salient took a chance on nose and jumped up and down in joyous abandon, calling, "Bump le nez—le salient!" apparently in keen appreciation of the absurdity of the ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... just in time, for his clothes, heated by his rapid flight through the air, were already beginning to singe. He came down with a forcible, but by no means injurious, bump in what appeared to be a mound of fresh-turned earth. A large mass of metal and masonry, extraordinarily like the clock-tower in the middle of the market square, hit the earth near him, ricochetted over him, and flew into stonework, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Tony," she replied, "I will shoot the ball ahead, and blow out the gate. When you hear it bump against the gate, throw yourself flat in the car, for an instant later I will explode it. Then you can rush through the gate into the night. Scout ships are now hovering above, and they will see you with their ultroscopes, though ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan

... Do not bump yourself. Do not eat matches. Do not play with scissors or cats. Do not forget your dad. Sleep when your mother wishes it. Love us both. Try to know how we love you. THAT you will never learn. Good-night and God keep you, ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... about horses and horsemanship, or fancy they do, will not read this chapter. But as there are riding-schools in the City of London, where an excellent business is done in teaching well-grown men how to ride for health or fashion, and as papas who know their own bump-bump style very well often desire to teach their daughters, I have collected the following instructions from my own experience, now extending over full thirty years, on horses of all kinds, including the worst, and from the best ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... a winning team for a couple years. A few reverses and the proud alumni commence hollering 'get the axe'! Everybody loves a winner and they don't stop to figure there's got to be a loser to every winner. Now that Grinnell's piled up a great record this year, we're supposed to bump you off. If we do, despite the fact we've had no season to shout about ourselves, the alumni will consider ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... children. But les femmes du peuple, the fishwives, the labourers' daughters, the bouncing young fruit-sellers, and the like, are not religious in Cadiz. They have been bitten with the revolutionary mania; they are staunch Red Republicans, and have the bump of veneration as flat as the furies that went in procession to Versailles at the period of the Great Revolution, or their great granddaughters who fought on the barricades of the Commune. The nymphs of the pavement sympathize strongly with the Republic likewise; but ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... along the brick wall she brought up, with a sudden bump, at the back of the stairway. Then she deliberated. If she went around to the front so as to get access to the steps, she might pass in range of the loiterer whom she mistrusted. That risk she would not incur. Examining the wall that enclosed the box-like stairway as best she could in the dark, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... you had," he greeted, drawing a small table close beside the bed. "This snow is treacherous when you're climbing among the rocks. When it caves in with you on the side of a mountain you might as well make up your mind you're going to get a good bump. Good thing Croisset was ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood

... early days, when Courtenay was a middy an a destroyer, his ship ran ashore on the Manacles. After a bump or two, and a noise like the snapping of trees during a hurricane, the little vessel broke her back, and the after part, with the engines, fell away into deep water. Courtenay happened to be on the bridge; the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... a good thing the pumpkin reached the bottom of the hill first, for if Freddie had been first the big, heavy pumpkin would have rolled up against him with a bump, and might have hurt him. But Freddie, bumping into the pumpkin, as he did, was not ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope

... the Capricorn's doorway. The insect will have but to file the screen a little with its mandibles, to bump against it with its forehead, in order to bring it down; it will even have nothing to do when the window is free, as often happens. The unskilled carpenter, burdened with his extravagant head-dress, will emerge from the darkness ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... hunting grounds if they had to cover my ground this afternoon," he laughed, at the same time mapping his program. "Between now and dinner I've got to do a hundred and twenty miles. I'm taking the racer, and it's going to be some dust and bump and only an occasional low place. I haven't the heart to ask you along. You go on and take it out of Duddy ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... them!" Old Jervis lashes his oar through the water, the boat answers to the spurt, and Tom feels a little shock, and hears a grating sound, as Miller shouts, "Unship oars, bow and three." The nose of the St. Ambrose boat glides quietly up the side of the Exeter, the first bump has ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... On the bump of green round which the brae twists, at the top of the brae, and within cry of T'nowhead Farm, still stands a one-storey house, whose whitewashed walls, streaked with the discoloration that rain leaves, look yellow when the snow comes. In the old days the stiff ascent left Thrums ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... nicely- balanced mind is set suddenly oscillating: now up, commandingly above the world, intoxicated with the rush and the elevation; now down to depths made horribly deep by contrast, wretchedly jarred by the bump. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... muffled cries and calls here, there, and everywhere. They went at a snail's pace, of course. Once, at a corner, the near wheels got on the pavement; the cab tilted over; Miss Burgoyne shrieked aloud and clung to her companion; then there was a heavy bump, and the venerable vehicle resumed its slow progress. Suddenly they beheld a cluster of dim, nebulous, phantom lights ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... Away they sped, bumpity-bump, to the hay-field, picking up the carrot-hoers as they went. It is astonishing how many people can cling to one little car, when those people are neither very wide nor, some of them, very tall. From the ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... providin' I'll stroll over to the Grand Central with him first, while he sees about some baggage. We was makin' a dash through the traffic across Sixth-ave. when I misses Alvin, and turns around to find him apologizin' to a young female he's managed to bump into and spill in the slush just as he fetched the curb. He has his hat off and is beggin' her pardon in his best society way too; although he must have seen at a glance what she was,—one of these brassy-eyed parties with a hand-decorated complexion ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to stay at. The heroine of a modern novel is always "divinely tall," and she is ever "drawing herself up to her full height." At the "Barley Mow" she would bump her head against the ceiling ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... returned, with a bump, out of the mist. The train for Paris would arrive de suite. We were just in time, our movement had so far been very creditable. All was ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... click of the gate made her look out. "Here comes Mack," she said. "Your shoes are wrapped in a newspaper, and he's so busy reading something on it that he doesn't know where he is going. Look out, snail!" she called; "you'll bump into the house in a minute if you are ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... reserve must find itself cracked and thawing in the intimacies which a jerking railway car precipitates. There is no dignity which is proof against a sound bump upon the head. Thus our irritations and suspicions gave way to laughter, and laughter brings all the barriers down. The compartment became a confessional. The anxious looking man opposite was hoping to get to his estate and ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... up the rigging hand over hand, and brought his red head with a bump against the base of Harry's back. Needs must when the devil drives; and higher and higher, with Max bumping him at every step, went my unfortunate friend. At last he gained the royal yard, and the thin signal halyards—, hardly bigger than common ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... If you girls don't get off, I'll dump you," suiting action to words, as he tilted the plank sidewise. Elsa got a real bump, from the barrel to the ground. Charley's end of the see-saw was on the ground so she scrambled up laughing. Not so Elschen. She was red with anger. She flew at Roger and slapped him ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... Walt, and almost simultaneous with his words was heard the bump of his heavy body alighting on ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... partook of the abundant refreshment offered to them. When my lady was to return, and had taken her place in the sedan, her bearers raised the chair, but she found no progress was made—she felt herself sway first to one side, then to the other, and soon came bump upon the ground, when Donald behind was heard shouting to Donald before (for the bearers of sedans were always Highlanders), "Let her down, Donald, man, for ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... fell on your head, but I threw you down, Jerrold. I'm sorry I touched you, but you're lucky it was no worse. This thing is going to raise a big bump here. Shall I send ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... Bump—bump, the oars played their monotonous music on the thole-pins. Sicinnus stirred on his seat. He was peering northward anxiously, and Glaucon knew what he was seeking. Through the void of the night their straining eyes saw masses gliding across the face of the water. Ariabignes was making his promise ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... scarcely expect her to take me into her confidence on the matter, since she seems intent on regarding me as merely a bit of the landscape. The disturbing part of it all is that her aloofness is so unstudied, so indifferent in its lack of deliberation. It makes me feel like a bump on a log. I shouldn't so much mind being actively and martially snubbed, for that would give me something definite and tangible to grow combative over. But you can't cross swords with a ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... said old Lauder, who had been busy hanging lighted pit lamps round Tam's cap, "gi'e him a guid run to the bottom, and see that he gets a guid bump ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... Sundays pass on alike as far as outside incident is concerned, but new features in each other open to view as time goes on. Naval discipline develops the bump of reverence, or at any rate fosters it for a time, and to the volunteer in his first days or weeks passed on board a man-of-war, the dignified captain in the retirement of his cabin is an object of veneration, and the slight peculiarities of some other officers, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... and the waiting cars came together with a grinding bump. An instant's pause, a gathering of force, a mighty puffing and, slow and jerkily, the cars began to move. The ground about Meechum's Station was grey with soldiers—part of the Stonewall, most of Burk's and Fulkerson's brigades, waiting for the second train and the third train and their turn ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... cab, sir.'—'Anybody hurt, do you know?'—'O'ny the fare, sir. I see him a turnin' the corner, and I ses to another gen'lm'n "that's a reg'lar little oss that, and he's a comin' along rayther sweet, an't he?"—"He just is," ses the other gen'lm'n, ven bump they cums agin the post, and out flies the fare like bricks.' Need we say it was the red cab; or that the gentleman with the straw in his mouth, who emerged so coolly from the chemist's shop and philosophically climbing into the little dickey, started off at full gallop, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... with no concealments, yet who speaks not till he's spoken to; knows when to stop, and stops.' You note my pale eyebrows, my slightly prominent and pointed chin, somewhat over-sized mouth; small, well-spread ears, faintly aquiline nose; fine, thin, blonde hair, a depression in the skull where the bump of self-conceit ought to be, and you say, 'A man that knows his talents without being vain of them; who not only minds his own business, but loves it, and who in that business, be it buggy-whips or be it washine, or be it something far nobler,'—which, let me say modestly, it is,—'simply ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable



Words linked to "Bump" :   designate, bang, extrusion, swelling, throw, prominence, jar, demote, smash, collide with, gibbosity, depute, trip the light fantastic, jolt, bump into, bump up, slap, sideline, excrescence, gibbousness, protuberance, goose bump, delegate, blow, bumpy, run into, reduce, strike, injury, kick downstairs, impact, dance, relegate, bash, bump off, rap, belly, hump, belt, chance, caput, snag, bump around, hit, nubble, bulge, sideswipe, promote



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