chump

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmp

Etymology

Compare Icelandic kumbr a chopping, English chop.

Noun

chump (plural chumps)

1. (colloquial, pejorative) An incompetent person, a blockhead; a loser.

   That chump wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

2. 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.

   • 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”:

     Ralph Wiggum is generally employed as a bottomless fount of glorious non sequiturs, but in “I Love Lisa” he stands in for every oblivious chump who ever deluded himself into thinking that with persistence, determination, and a pure heart he can win the girl of his dreams.

3. The thick end, especially of a piece of wood or of a joint of meat.
   • Dickens

     Shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something.

Synonyms

• (an unintelligent person): blockhead, idiot, dope, dolt, dunce, dummy
• (a gullible person): gull, sucker, dupe, sap, dummy; pushover, patsy; mark, pigeon, sucker; fool, dummy
• See also Wikisaurus:dupe

Translations

an unintelligent person

• Finnish: typerys (fi), tollo (fi)
• French: abruti (fr) m, idiot (fr) m, andouille (fr) f, âne (fr) m, imbécile (fr) m
• German: Dummkopf (de) m, Trottel (de) m

• Hungarian: bunkó (hu)
• Italian: fesso (it) m, allocco (it) m
• Russian: дурак (ru) (durak) 

a gullible person

• Finnish: typerys (fi), tollo (fi), tohelo (fi), hölmö (fi)
• Hungarian: balek (hu)

• Italian: fesso (it) m, allocco (it) m
• Russian: лох (ru) (lóx) m 

Derived terms

• chump change
• chump chop
• off one's chump