thump

Mid 16th century, probably imitative.

• IPA^(key): /θʌmp/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmp

• Audio (UK):

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thump (plural thumps)

1. A blow that produces a muffled sound.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 1:

     ... and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

   • 1710 January 4 (Gregorian calendar), Isaac Bickerstaff [et al., pseudonyms; Richard Steele et al.], “Saturday, December 24, 1709”, in The Tatler, number 111; republished in [Richard Steele], editor, The Tatler, […], London stereotype edition, volume II, London: I. Walker and Co.;  […], 1822, →OCLC:

     The watchman gave so very great a thump at my door last night, that I awakened at the knock.

     The spelling has been modernized.

2. The sound of such a blow; a thud.
3. (dated, colloquial, euphemistic) Used to replace the vulgar or blasphemous element in "what the hell" and similar phrases.

   Where the thump have you been?!

thump (third-person singular simple present thumps, present participle thumping, simple past and past participle thumped)

1. (transitive, chiefly UK) To hit (someone or something) as if to make a thump.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

     These bastard Bretons, whom our fathers / Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd.

   • 2011 January 19, Jonathan Stevenson, “Leeds 1-3 Arsenal”, in BBC:

     Kasper Schmeichel brilliantly denied Marouane Chamakh before Bacary Sagna thumped home a second, though Bradley Johnson's screamer halved the deficit.

2. (transitive) To cause to make a thumping sound.

   The cat thumped its tail in irritation.

3. (intransitive) To thud or pound.
4. (intransitive) To throb with a muffled rhythmic sound.

   Dance music thumped from the nightclub entrance.

   • 2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55:

     Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.