[Of modern formation: app. a parallel form to CHUNK, perh. influenced in form by association with chop, or with lump, stump, clump. (Prof. Skeat compares Icel. kumbr, kubbr, a chopping, cutting, and kubba to chop.)]
1. A short thick lump of wood chopped or sawn off from timber; an end-piece.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 195. A Chump of Wood.
1831. Landor, Misc. (1846), II. 662. While the broad chump … Strong with internal fire … heats the chamber round from morn till night.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, II. i. She fetched a hatchet … and showing him a chump … asked him if he would chop that up for her.
1884. Chamb. Jrnl., 18 Oct., 658/1. There was a great heap of oak ‘chumps,’ crooked logs, sawn in lengths, and piled together.
2. The thick blunt end of anything; also chump-end: esp. the thick end of a loin of mutton.
1861. Dickens, Gt. Expect., I. 153. As if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something.
1880. Blackmore, Mary Anerley, I. vi. 64–5. The chump of the spine of the Wolds, which hulks up at last into Flamborough Head.
b. Jocosely applied to the head. Off his chump (vulgar): off his head,’ out of his senses.
1877. Besant & Rice, Son of Vulc., II. xxiv. 377. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘have gone off his chump—that’s all.’
3. fig. A man as unintelligent as a chump of wood; a block, blockhead (cf. BLOCK sb. 15).
1883. Hawley Smart, At Fault, II. i. 29. Such a long-winded old chump at telling a story.
1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 Feb., 10/1. Frank audibly remarked: ‘This man is a chump. I could go right down there on that stage this minute and do better than that.’ Ibid., 23 Aug., 3/1. I told the chumps they’d get noticed if they didn’t keep out of the way.
4. Chump-chop, a chop from the chump-end.
1883. Daily News, 29 Sept., 3/7. A splendid dish of Irish stew, with a large chump chop in it for 1s.
