chump

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English

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /t͡ʃʌmp/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʌmp

Etymology 1

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Origin uncertain; probably a blend of chunk and lump or stump, or perhaps a nasalised variant of chub (someone chubby, something thick). Compare Icelandic kubbur (block of wood, chip (computing)), Old Norse kumbr for kubbr (block of wood), English chop.

Noun

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chump (plural chumps)

  1. (colloquial, derogatory) An incompetent person, a blockhead; a loser.
    That chump wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.
  2. (colloquial, derogatory) 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)”, in AV Club[1]:
      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.
  4. (UK, slang, obsolete) A person's head or face.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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References
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  • (head or face): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

Verb

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chump (third-person singular simple present chumps, present participle chumping, simple past and past participle chumped)

  1. (slang, transitive) To treat (someone) as a chump; to defraud or swindle (someone).
    Synonym: chump off

Etymology 2

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Variant of chomp, itself a variant of champ (to bite). More at champ.

Verb

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chump (third-person singular simple present chumps, present participle chumping, simple past and past participle chumped)

  1. Dated form of chomp.
    • 1922, Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory:
      At a neighbouring table two Germans were making a hearty meal, chumping the meat and smacking their lips in a kind of heavy ecstasy.