galumph

Word of the Day : May 22, 2022 play verb guh-LUMF


Galumph means "to move with a clumsy heavy tread." // After long days at his landscaping job, their teenage son galumphs into the house and flings himself onto the couch, sighing heavily. See the entry >

galumph in Context

"One moment he'd be pitter-pattering…; the next he'd be whirling and galumphing about the stage." — Jeffrey Gantz, The Boston Globe, 8 Feb. 2022


Did You Know?

Bump, thump, thud. There's no doubt about it—when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. Galumph first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: "He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." Carroll likely constructed the word by splicing _gallop_ and _triumphant_ (galumph did in its earliest uses convey a sense of exultant bounding). Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of galumph, because they began plying it in their own prose, and it has been clumping around our language ever since.



Quiz

Unscramble the letters to create a word meaning "to walk, tread, or step especially heavily": MRPAT. VIEW THE ANSWER



-"Word of the Day: Galumph"