different between lumpish vs big

English

Etymology

lump +? -ish

Adjective

lumpish (comparative more lumpish, superlative most lumpish)

1. Shaped like a lump, lumpy, ill-defined in shape.
   • 1794, Uvedale Price, An Essay on the Picturesque, as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful, London: J. Robson, Chapter 9, p. 161,^[1]

     It seems to me that mere unmixed ugliness does not arise from sharp angles, or from any sudden variation, but rather from that want of form, that unshapen lumpish appearance, which, perhaps, no one word exactly expresses; a quality that never can be mistaken for beauty, never can adorn it, and which is equally unconnected with the sublime and the picturesque.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Spring,”^[2]

     Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly.

   • 1926, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Chapter 54,^[3]

     Continental soldiers looked lumpish beside our lean-bred fellows: but against my supple Nejdis the British in their turn looked lumpish.

2. Like lumps, lumpy, composed of unshaped or mismatched pieces.
   • 2010, Charles Darwent, “Beauty and Power: The Peter Marino Collection, Wallace Collection, London,” The Independent, 1 May, 2010,^[4]

     Bandinelli […] is otherwise best known for the lumpish statue of Hercules and Cacus that still stands outside the Palazzo, a desperate and failed attempt to rival the greatness of his nemesis.

   • 2015, Jason Farago, “The best American art shows of 2015,” The Guardian, 16 December, 2015,^[5]

     The lumpish, irregular totems crafted by this American sculptor were outfitted here with that most contemporary and most loathsome of accessories: the selfie stick.

3. Like a lump, cloddish, dull, slow-witted.
   • 1697, Daniel Defoe, An Essay Upon Projects, London: Tho. Cockerill, “Of Academies,” p. 293,^[6]

     The whole Sex are generally Quick and Sharp: I believe I may be allow’d to say generally so; for you rarely see them lumpish and heavy when they are Children, as Boys will often be.

   • 1933, H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come, Book Two, Chapter 1,^[7]

     The Common People became therefore a mystical sympathetic being, essentially a God, whose altar was the hustings and whose oracle the ballot box. A little slow and lumpish was this God of the Age of European Predominance, but, though his mills ground slowly, men were assured that they ground with ultimate exactitude.

   • 1936, George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Chapter 7,^[8]

     He felt horribly ashamed. He would have liked to throw himself on his knees beside her, put his arms round her, and ask her pardon. But he could do nothing of the kind; the scene had left him lumpish and awkward.

4. (archaic) Without energy, lethargic.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book III, Canto 4, stanza 61,^[9]

     […] So forth he went,

     With heavy looke and lumpish pace, that plaine

     In him bewraid great grudge and maltalent;

   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, Scene 2,^[10]

     Upon this warrant shall you have access

     Where you with Silvia may confer at large;

     For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,

     And, for your friend’s sake, will be glad of you;

     Where you may temper her by your persuasion

     To hate young Valentine and love my friend.

   • 1602, attributed to Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, Blurt, Master Constable,^[11]

     […] a song I prethee, I love these French moovings; oh they are so cleane if you treade them true, you shal hit them to a haire; sing, sing, sing some odde and fantasticall thing, for I cannot abide these dull and lumpish tunes, the Musition stands longer a pricking them then I would doe to heare them: no, no, no, give mee your light ones, that goe nimbly and quicke, and are full of changes, and carrie sweet devision […]

   • 1660, John Ball, A Treatise of Divine Meditation, London: H. Mortlock, p. 149,^[12]

     I have greatly neglected the knowledge of God, when hee threatneth, I am senseless; in his presence, I am irreverent, dead-hearted when I appear before him; lumpish in Prayer, loose in Meditation […]

   • 1760, Robert Lloyd, “Ode to Genius” in Samuel Johnson (ed.), The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, 1810, Volume 15, p. 137,^[13],

     Thou bear’st aloof, and look’st with high disdain,

     Upon the dull mechanic train;

     Whose nerveless strains flag on in languid tone,

     Lifeless and lumpish as the bagpipe’s drowzy drone.

5. Awkward, inelegant.
   • 1951, “New Plays in Manhattan,” Time, 5 March, 1951,^[14]

     But the play’s snatches of racy prose do not offset its stretches of lumpish playwriting. Too often both untidy and oldfashioned, it closed after four performances.

   • 2011, Deon Irish, “‘La Traviata’ in need of finer tuning,” Cape Times, 17 October, 2011,^[15]

     Direction of the principal characters is effective, but the crowd scenes tend to the lumpish, with a paradoxically static feel, despite the overt busyness of it all.

Derived terms

• lumpishly
• lumpishness

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?g, IPA^(key): /b??/
• Rhymes: -??

Etymology 1

From a northern Middle English dialectal term big, bigge (“powerful, strong”) possibly from a dialect of Old Norse. Ultimately perhaps a derivative of Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”), in which case big would be related to bogey, bugbear, and bug.

Compare dialectal Norwegian bugge (“great man”), Low German Bögge, Boggelmann.

Adjective

big (comparative bigger, superlative biggest)

1. Of great size, large.

   Synonyms: ample, huge, large, sizeable, stoor, jumbo, massive; see also Thesaurus:big

   Antonyms: little, small, tiny, minuscule, miniature, minute

   • The big houses, and there are a good many of them, lie for the most part in what may be called by courtesy the valleys. You catch a glimpse of them sometimes at a little distance from the [railway] line, […], with their court of farm and church and clustered village, in dignified seclusion.
2. (of an industry or other field, often capitalized) Thought to have undue influence.
3. Popular.

   Synonyms: all the rage, in demand, well liked
4. (informal) Adult.

   Synonyms: adult, fully grown, grown up; see also Thesaurus:full-grown

   Antonyms: little, young

   • 1931, Robert L. May, Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Montgomery Ward (publisher), draft:

     By midnight, however, the last light had fled / For even big people have then gone to bed[.]

5. (informal) Fat.

   Synonyms: chubby, plus-size, rotund; see also Thesaurus:overweight

6. (informal) Important or significant.

   Synonyms: essential, paramount, weighty; see also Thesaurus:important

   • "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. Then I ran away and sold papers in the streets, and anything else that I could pick up a few coppers by—except steal. I never did that. I always made up my mind I'd be a big man some day, and—I'm glad I didn't steal."
7. (informal, with on) Enthusiastic (about).

   Synonyms: fanatical, mad, worked up; see also Thesaurus:enthusiastic

   • 2019, Louise Taylor, Alex Morgan heads USA past England into Women’s World Cup final (in The Guardian, 2 July 2019)[3]

     Neville is big on standing by his principles and he deserves plaudits for acknowledging he got his starting system wrong, reverting to 4-2-3-1 and introducing Kirby in the No 10 role.

9. (informal, transitive with of) Mature, conscientious, principled; generous.
10. (informal) Well-endowed, possessing large breasts in the case of a woman or a large penis in the case of a man.

    Synonyms: busty, macromastic, stacked; see also Thesaurus:busty

11. (sometimes figuratively) Large with young; pregnant; swelling; ready to give birth or produce.

    Synonyms: full, great, heavy; see also Thesaurus:pregnant

    • [Day] big with the fate of Cato and of Rome.

12. (informal) Used as an intensifier, especially of negative-valence nouns

13. (of a city) populous
14. (informal, slang, rare, of somebody's age) old, mature. Used to imply that somebody is too old for something, or acting immaturely.
    • 2020, Candice Carty-Williams, Notting Hill Carnival

      I don't think so, if you're shouting at people across the playground at your big age.

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

big (comparative bigger, superlative biggest)

1. In a loud manner.
2. In a boasting manner.

   He's always talking big, but he never delivers.

3. In a large amount or to a large extent.

   He won big betting on the croquet championship.

4. On a large scale, expansively.

   You've got to think big to succeed at Amalgamated Plumbing.

5. Hard.

   He hit him big and the guy just crumpled.

Noun

big (plural bigs)

1. Someone or something that is large in stature
2. An important or powerful person; a celebrity; a big name.
3. (as plural) The big leagues, big time.
4. (BDSM, slang) The participant in ageplay who acts out the older role.

Synonyms

• (big leagues): major leagues

Antonyms

• (BDSM): little

Verb

big (third-person singular simple present bigs, present participle bigging, simple past and past participle bigged) (up)

1. (transitive) To praise, recommend, or promote.

Etymology 2

From Middle English biggen, byggen, from Old Norse byggja, byggva (“to build, dwell in, inhabit”), a secondary form of Old Norse búa (“to dwell”), related to Old English b?an (“to dwell”). Cognate with Danish bygge, Swedish bygga.

Verb

big (third-person singular simple present bigs, present participle bigging, simple past and past participle bigged)

1. (transitive, archaic or Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) to inhabit; occupy
2. (reflexive, archaic or Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) to locate oneself
3. (transitive, archaic or Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) to build; erect; fashion
4. (intransitive, archaic or Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) to dwell; have a dwelling

Etymology 3

From Middle English byge, from Old Norse bygg (“barley, probably Hordeum vulgare, common barley”), from Proto-Germanic *bewwuz (“crop, barley”). Cognate with Old English b?ow (“barley”).

Alternative forms

• bigg
• bygg, bygge (obsolete)

Noun

big (uncountable)

1. One or more kinds of barley, especially six-rowed barley.

Anagrams

• GBI, GiB, Gib., gib

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch bagge, vigge. Originally a word exclusive to the Northern Dutch dialects.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b?x/
• Hyphenation: big
• Rhymes: -?x

Noun

big m or f (plural biggen, diminutive biggetje n)

1. piglet, little pig

   Synonym: keu

Derived terms

• biggenkruid

Irish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b???/

Adjective

big

1. inflection of beag:
   1. vocative/genitive masculine singular
   2. (archaic) dative feminine singular

Mutation

Italian

Noun

big m (invariable)

1. star (entertainment)
2. big shot, big noise

Scots

Etymology

From Old Norse byggja (“inhabit, build”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??/

Verb

big (third-person singular present bigs, present participle biggin, past biggit, past participle biggit)

1. to build

Torres Strait Creole

Etymology

From English big, cognate with (the first part of) Bislama bikfala, bigfala, Pijin bigfala, Tok Pisin bikpela.

Adjective

big

1. big

Derived terms

Welsh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bi??/

Noun

big

1. Soft mutation of pig.

Mutation

Western Apache

Etymology

From Proto-Athabaskan *-w??t?.

Cognates: Navajo -bid, Plains Apache -bid.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [p??k]

Noun

big (inalienable)

1. belly, stomach, abdomen

Usage notes

• The form -big occurs in the White Mountain varieties; -bid occurs in San Carlos and Dilzhe’eh (Tonto).