bump
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bump", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bump" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bump" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bump is aEnglishnoun. It means: A light blow or jolting collision. Pronounced /bʌmp/. It ranks #7,316 in English word frequency. Often confused with but and buy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bump |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bʌmp/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #7,316 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bump is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bʌmp/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,316 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 21 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for bump, with forms such as "bbump", "bmup", and "bummp". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "but", "buy", "bus", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Early Modern English bump (“a shock, blow from a collision”), probably of North Germanic origin; compare Danish bump (“a thump”), Danish bumpe (“to thump”), Old Danish bumpe (“to strike with a clenched fist”), all probably of imitative origin. Apparent… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bump, spelled B-U-M-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A light blow or jolting collision.
- 2The sound of such a collision.
- 3A protuberance on a level surface.
- 4A swelling on the skin caused by illness or injury.
- 5One of the protuberances on the cranium which, in phrenology, are associated with distinct faculties or affections of the mind. Also (dated, metonymic) the faculty itself
- 6The point, in a race in which boats are spaced apart at the start, at which a boat begins to overtake the boat ahead.
- 7The swollen abdomen of a pregnant woman.
- 8A post in an Internet forum thread made in order to raise the thread's profile by returning it to the top of the list of active threads.
- 9A temporary increase in a quantity, as shown in a graph.
- 10A dose of a drug such as ketamine or cocaine, when snorted recreationally.
- 11A disco dance in which partners rhythmically bump their hips together.
- 12In skipping, a single jump over two consecutive turns of the rope.
- 13A coarse cotton fabric.
- 14A training match for a fighting dog.
- 15The jaw of either of the middle pockets.
- 16Music, especially played over speakers at loud volume with strong bass frequency response.
- 17A short, self-promotional spot on a radio or television station.
- 18A reassignment of jobs within an organization (for example, when an existing employee leaves) on the basis of seniority.
- 19In the game of khanhoo, the act of claiming a newly discarded card when it is not one's turn, permitted when one can use the card to form a meld other than a sequence.
- 20A minor problem or difficulty.
- 21A sudden movement of underground strata, preceded by a characteristic sound.
Etymology
From Early Modern English bump (“a shock, blow from a collision”), probably of North Germanic origin; compare Danish bump (“a thump”), Danish bumpe (“to thump”), Old Danish bumpe (“to strike with a clenched fist”), all probably of imitative origin. Apparently related to Middle English bumben, bummen (“to make a hollow noise”), Dutch bommen (“to hum, buzz”), German Low German bumsen (“to bump, push”), German bummen (“to hum, buzz”), Icelandic bumba (“drum”). More at bum, bumble. Compare also bomb.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbump,bmup,bummp,bumpp,bupm,ubmp
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bump
Misspelling Variants of "bump"
Frequency rank: #7,316 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: