lumper

• Rhymes: -ʌmpə(ɹ)

lump +‎ -er

lumper (plural lumpers)

1. An extra laborer hired to assist in the loading or unloading of a truck or a ship.
2. (biology, linguistics) A scientist in one of various fields who prefers to keep categories such as species or dialects together in larger groups.

   Antonym: splitter

3. (dialect) A militiaman.

lumper (plural lumpers)

1. (dialect) A lamprey.

lumper (third-person singular simple present lumpers, present participle lumpering, simple past and past participle lumpered)

1. to lumber; to plod
   • 1866 (date written)​, Thomas Hardy, “The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published 1898, OCLC 5959488, page 190:

     Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay, / They lumpered straight into the night; / And finding bylong where a halter-path lay, / At dawn reached Tim's house […]

   • 1904, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, in Three Parts, Nineteen Acts, & One Hundred and Thirty Scenes, part first, London: Macmillan and Co., Limited: New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, OCLC 4852011, Act II, scene v, page 81:

     But, my dear woman, why ever have ye come lumpering up to Rainbarrows at this time o' night?

   • 1929, Thomas Hardy, Old Mrs. Chundle, New York: Crosby Gaige, OCLC 1061906613, page 11:

     Lord, what's the good o' my lumpering all the way to church and back again, when I'm as deaf as a plock?

• Plumer, Rumple, replum, rumple