plump

• IPA^(key): /plʌmp/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmp

From Middle English plump, plompe, a borrowing from Middle Dutch plomp or Middle Low German plump. Cognate with Saterland Frisian plump (“plump”).

plump (comparative plumper or more plump, superlative plumpest or most plump)

1. Having a full and rounded shape; chubby, somewhat overweight.

   a plump baby; plump cheeks

   • 1651, Thomas Carew, To my friend G. N. from Wrest:

     The god of wine did his plump clusters bring.

   • 2015, Anton Chekhov, The Life and Genius of Anton Chekhov: Letters, Diary, Reminiscences and Biography: Assorted Collection of Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned Russian Author and Playwright of Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and The Seagull, e-artnow, →ISBN:

     My ideal is to be idle and to love a plump girl.

   • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 23, in Crime out of Mind:

     He was a plump little man and we had been walking uphill at a pace—set by him—far too rapid for his short legs. He breathed stertorously, and half the drops which glimmered on his rotund face were not rain but sweat.

2. Fat.
3. Sudden and without reservation; blunt; direct; downright.
   • 1898, George Saintsbury, “XXXVII The Dullards That Men Are”, in A Short History of English Literature:

     After the plump statement that the author was at Erceldoune and spake with Thomas.

   • 1925, Stanley John Weyman, Queen's Folly:

     I've said so haven't I? Plump and plain.

• See also Thesaurus:obese

• See also Thesaurus:scrawny

• plumping
• plumply
• plumpness

plump (third-person singular simple present plumps, present participle plumping, simple past and past participle plumped)

1. (intransitive) To grow plump; to swell out.

   Her cheeks have plumped.

2. (transitive) To make plump; to fill (out) or support; often with up.

   to plump oysters or scallops by placing them in fresh or brackish water

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):

     to plump up the hollowness of their history with improbable miracles

   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC:

     Although Miss Pross, through her long association with a French family, might have known as much of their language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that direction […] So her manner of marketing was to plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the nature of an article […]

3. (intransitive) To give a plumper (kind of vote).
4. (transitive) To give (a vote), as a plumper.
6. (intransitive) To favor or decide in favor of. [with for ‘something’]
   • 2014, “Brazil in a nutshell”, in The Economist:

     A recent poll by the New York Times found that although most Brazilians plump for arch-rival Argentina as the team they most want to lose, the second-biggest group want Brazil itself to stumble.

From Middle English plumpen, akin to Middle Dutch plompen, Middle Low German plumpen, German plumpsen.

plump (third-person singular simple present plumps, present participle plumping, simple past and past participle plumped)

2. (transitive) To cast or let drop (something) all at once, suddenly and heavily.

   to plump a stone into water

4. (intransitive) To drop or fall suddenly or heavily, all at once.

   Synonym: slump

   • September 24, 1712, The Spectator No. 492, letter from a prude

     Dulcissa plumps into a chair.

plump

1. Directly; suddenly; perpendicularly.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 49, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 253:

     I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman’s discretion?

plump (plural plumps)

1. The sound of a sudden heavy fall.
   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:

     As she beheld her, poor Mrs. Mack's heart fluttered up to her mouth, and then dropped with a dreadful plump, into the pit of her stomach.

From Middle English plump.

plump (plural plumps)

1. (obsolete) A knot or cluster; a group; a crowd.

   a plump of trees, fowls, or spears

   • 1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC:

     To visit islands and the plumps of men.

     The spelling has been modernized.

2. A group of geese flying close together.

• “plump”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

From Middle Low German plump, itself onomatopoeic for a dull fall (as of a stone into water, or a sack on the ground). Cognate with Dutch and Middle Dutch plomp (13th c.), whence also English plump.

Alemannic German has shifted forms in Alsatian pflumpfig, Swiss pflumpfet, but these were probably formed analogically as the word moved up the Rhine (and thus do not prove West Germanic inheritance).

• IPA^(key): /plʊmp/

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

• Audio (Austria):

  (file)

plump (strong nominative masculine singular plumper, comparative plumper, superlative am plumpsten or am plumpesten)

1. dumpy, squat, bulky (roundish and misshapen)

   Diese sogenannte Skulptur ist nur ein plumper, rostiger Metallklotz.

   This so-called sculpture is but a squat, rusty lump of metal.

2. (of movement, or figurative of behaviour) clumsy, heavy, graceless, inelegant

   Er kam mit seinem plumpen, stampfenden Gang auf uns zugeschwankt.

   He came toddling towards us with his graceless, stomping gait.

   Die Rede des Kandidaten war gespickt mit plumpen Anbiederungsversuchen.

   The candidate’s speech was full of clumsy attempts to ingratiate himself.

3. (by narrowing) brash, tactless, crude

   Er näherte sich der jungen Frau mit plumpen Sprüchen.

   He approached the young woman with crude remarks.

• The German word can also be used of a person’s body, but it then expresses a dumpy, misproportioned and inelegant figure, rather than merely overweight.

• “plump” in Duden online
• “plump” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Onomatopoeic.

• (Cois Fharraige) IPA^(key): /pˠl̪ˠʊmˠpˠ/

plump f (genitive singular plumpa, nominative plural plumpanna)

1. Cois Fharraige form of plimp

• plumpaíl

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “plump”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

• IPA^(key): [ˈpʰlʉmp]

plump

1. big and awkward
2. base, vulgar

plump (comparative plumpare, superlative plumpast)

1. (possibly unintentionally) offensive due to lacking tact; rude, vulgar, tactless

   Komikern var kul i början, men när han gjorde sig lustig över utseendet hos killen i publiken blev det plumpt

   The comedian started out funny, but when he made fun of the looks of the guy in the audience it stopped being funny

• burdus

plump c

1. a blot (of ink)

   Synonym: bläckplump (“inkblot”)

• en plump i protokollet

• plump in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• plump in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• plump in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)