[f. LUMP sb.1
Cf. LUMPING ppl. a. 2, which occurs much earlier than the verb.]
1. trans. a. To melt down into a lump. b. To form or raise into lumps. c. To cover with lumps.
1797. Mrs. M. Robinson, Walsingham (1805), IV. xc. 256. Topas picked the family plate, and has lumped it by this time, with my pink diamond into the bargain.
1852. Meanderings of Mem., I. 12. I the mattress spread, And equal lay whatever lumps the bed.
1879. G. Meredith, Egoist, xxiii. An old cuirass … lumped with a strange adhesive concrete.
1893. Earl Dunmore, Pamirs, II. 293. Ploughed fields, one of which was ‘lumped up’ for melon planting, each lump a mound about two feet high.
2. To put altogether in one ‘lump,’ mass, sum, or group, without discrimination or regard for particulars or details; to take, consider, or deal with ‘in the lump.’ a. simply.
1624. Bp. Mountagu, Immed. Addr., 84. They agree not long with and amongst themselues,… let them be lumped or consorted as they would haue it, as they please.
1721. C. King, Brit. Merch., I. 223. They are as much out in their Estimation … as they are in their other goods, which they lump at above 480000l. whereas they amount only to 168884l.
1781. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, March. I have been … provokingly interrupted in writing this, that I must now finish it by lumping matters at once.
1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xiii. They always lump the petty officers and common seamen.
1884. Browning, Ferishtah, Camel-Driver. Man lumps his kind i’ the mass. God singles thence Unit by unit.
1893. Lydekker, Horns & Hoofs, 75. Dr. Gray (who certainly did not err on the side of ‘lumping’ species).
b. To lump together (occas. up).
1692. Sir T. P. Blount, Ess., 103. Take the World in Gross, and lump it together.
1726. Ayliffe, Parergon, 82. A compensation of Expences ought to be made, that is to say in English, the Expences ought to be lump’d together and divided.
1856. Maxwell, in Life, viii. (1882), 239. A tendency in the human mind to lump up all causes, and give them an aggregate name.
1895. F. Harrison, in 19th Cent., Aug., 214. All systems of unorthodox philosophy are lumped together by him as mere forms of ‘contemporary superstition.’
c. To lump (together) in or into, occas. under.
1703. De Foe, Freeholder’s plea agst. Stockjobbing Elections, Misc. 182. Our Liberties and Armies, and Fleets, and Parliaments, and Nation, are not Lump’d into Bargains.
1839. J. Sterling, Ess., etc. (1848), I. 326. Mr. Carlyle lumps under the same condemnation all introspection of a man’s being.
1883. Sir J. Bacon, in Law Rep., 27 Ch. Div. 511. The premium and the principal are lumped in one sum.
1902. Bond, Lyly’s Wks., II. 249. The … earlier work which I have lumped together under the wide title of Moralities.
d. To lump (something) into or (in) with (something else): see 2.
1796. Bentham, Prot. agst. Law Taxes (1816), 56. It comes lumped to him in the general mass of law charges: a heap of items, among which no vulgar eye can ever hope to discriminate.
1831. T. L. Peacock, Crotchet C., viii. Farmer Seedling lumps it in with his tithes…. Lumps it in, sir! Lump in a charitable donation!
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, I. viii. ‘I won’t,’ said Tom,… lumping them all in his mind with his sworn enemy.
1874. Whyte-Melville, Uncle John, II. xviii. 193. The General lumped him in with a body of dancing men … he was pleased to call the Light Brigade.
† 3. To pay in a lump sum. Obs. rare.
1755. Mem. Capt. P. Drake, I. xv. 147. The Turnkey proposed to us, to lump (as he called it) the coming down Money.
b. To lay the whole of (a particular sum of money) on a single object.
1864. Derby Day, iii. 32. He lumped it all upon an outsider, and backed him to win the Chester Cup.
1872. Besant & Rice, Ready-Money Mort., I. v. 106. Dick, if I only had a dollar in the world, and was certain that I should never make another, I’d lump it all on my system.
4. intr. To collect together into a lump; to be formed or raised into lumps.
1720. Robie in Phil. Trans., XXXI. 122. [To] cause the Ashes to lump or clodder together.
1852. Morfit, Tanning & Currying (1853), 397. Leather thus made … does not lump under the hammer.
1856. Symonds, in H. F. Brown, Biog. (1895), I. 82. I have a new cover and cushion made for my chair. It is much fatter and more comfortable than the old one, which used to lump up all in a heap.
5. To move heavily, ‘stump’ along; to drop down like a lump.
1861. F. W. Robinson, No-Church, Prol. (1863), 4. The old woman gave a snort like a sea-horse, lumped down in her bed, and drew her counterpane over her head. Ibid., viii. 61. He scrambled up with an oath, lumped down again in a sitting posture, and stared before him stupidly.
1879. G. Meredith, Egoist, I. Prel. 4. They lump along like the old lob-legs of Dobbin the horse.
