lumping
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lump 1
(lŭmp)n.
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.
Idiom: 1. To become lumpy.
2. To move heavily.
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.]
lump 2
(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.