[Of unknown origin; possibly shortened from FRUMPLE.]

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  † 1.  ? A sneer, ? a derisive snort. Obs.

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1589.  R. Harvey, Pl. Perc., 4. You vse the nostrils too much, and to many vnseasoned frumps [to a man, as if he were a horse].

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1592.  Greene, Disput., 24. I gaue him slender thankes, but with such a frump that he perceiued how light I made of his counsayle.

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1650.  Trapp, Comm. Deut. xxiii. 4. As God takes notice of the least courtesie shewed to his people … so he doth of the least discourtesie, even to a frown or a frump.

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  † 2.  A mocking speech or action; a flout, jeer. Obs.

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1553.  T. Wilson, Rhet. (1580), 188. You brought a shillyng to ninepence … and so gave hym a frumpe euen to his face.

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1598.  Barckley, Felic. Man (1631), 99. Esteeming those things as the frumps of fortune, which ye exalt above the skies, and take for felicitie.

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1616.  Beaum. & Fl., Scornf. Lady, II. iii. Sweet Widow leave your frumps, and be edified.

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1651.  Howell, in Cartwright’s Poems, b 8 b. They dash thee on the Nose with frumps and rapps.

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a. 1700.  B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Frump, a dry Bob, or Jest.

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  † 3.  A derisive deception, a hoax. Obs.

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1593.  Hollyband, Fr. Dict. (Halliw.). To tell one a lie, to give a frumpe.

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1668.  Davenant, Man’s the Master, II. i. These are a kind of witty frumps of mine like selling of bargains.

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1791.  Pegge, Derbicisms, Ser. II. (E.D.S.), Frump, an untruth, a story.

15

  4.  pl. Sulks, ill-humour. Now dial.

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1668.  Dryden, Evening’s Love, IV. i. Not to be behind hand with you in your Frumps, I give you back your Purse of Gold. Ibid. (1678), Kind Kpr., I. i. Why should you be in your frumps, Pug, when I design only to oblige you?

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1823.  Scott, Peveril, xl. When the Duchess of Portsmouth takes the frumps.

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1823.  Moor, Suffolk Words, s.v., If insolent withal, she [a cross old woman] would be said to be frumpy or frumpish or ‘in her frumps.’

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  5.  A cross, old-fashioned, dowdily dressed woman. Also rarely, said of a man.

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1817.  W. Godwin, Mandeville, I. xi. 261. Under the tutoring of Mallison, they voted me a prig, a frump, a fogram, and qualified me with all the disparaging epithets, that a familiar acquaintance with the vulgar tongue could supply to the glibness of their eager speech.

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1840.  Barham, Ingol. Leg., Hamilton Tighe, 97. All the best trumps Get into the hands of the other old frumps.

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1859.  G. Meredith, R. Feverel, xlii. I’m sure I looked a frump.

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1888.  Rider Haggard, Col. Quaritch, I. xiii. 231. ‘Hang me,’ said Edward to himself, ‘if she has not taken up with that confounded old military frump.’

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  b.  said of a dowdy dress.

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1886.  G. R. Sims, Ring o’ Bells, etc., ix. 229. She taught me how to make the most of the features Providence had given me, and how to set my figure off, and how to make pretty dresses and bonnets for half what my ugly old frumps of gowns and coalscuttles used to cost me.

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