lumping

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lump¹

(lŭmp)

1. An irregularly shaped mass or piece.

2. A small cube of sugar.

3. Medicine A swelling or small palpable mass.

4. A collection or totality; an aggregate.

5. A person regarded as ungainly or dull-witted.

6. lumps Informal

a. Severe punishment or treatment, as a beating or an unsparing criticism: take one's lumps.

b. One's just deserts; comeuppance: get one's lumps.

adj.

1. Formed into lumps: lump sugar.

2. Not broken or divided into parts: a lump payment.

v. lumped, lump·ing, lumps

v.tr.

1. To put together in a single group without discrimination.

2. To move with heavy clumsiness.

3. To make into lumps.

v.intr.

1. To become lumpy.

2. To move heavily.

Idiom:

lump in (one's) throat

A feeling of constriction in the throat caused by emotion.

[Middle English lumpe, of Low German origin; akin to obsolete Dutch lompe.]

lump²

(lŭmp)

tr.v. lumped, lump·ing, lumps Informal

To tolerate (what must be endured): like it or lump it.

[Perhaps from dialectal lump, to look sullen.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in classic literature ?

A little later, in another department of the Wilmax Cannery, lumping as a fruit-distributor among the women, he essayed to carry two boxes of fruit at a time, and was promptly reproached by the other fruit-lumpers.

View in context

In the field of crude oil hydrogenation, the lumping kinetic models were widely used for designing the corresponding reactors and catalysts, simulating reactions, and optimizing operation conditions [24-28].

Lumping kinetics of hydrodesulfurization and hydrodenitrogenation of the middle distillate from Chinese shale oil

This appears to be due in large part to a high level of species aggregation or lumping. For example, web 1 includes single species representing all benthic organisms, all carnivorous fish, and all other fish.

lumping

lump 1

lump 2

lump¹

lump²