different between lumpish vs slow

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

Etymology

From Middle English slow, slaw, from Old English sl?w (“sluggish, inert, slothful, late, tardy, torpid, slow”), from Proto-Germanic *slaiwaz (“blunt, dull, faint, weak, slack”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lew- (“limp”). Cognate with Scots slaw (“slow”), Dutch sleeuw (“blunt, dull”), Low German slee (“dull, sluggish”), German schlehe, schleh (“dull, exhausted, faint”), Danish sløv (“dull, torpid, drowsy”), Swedish slö (“slack, lazy”), Icelandic sljór (“dim-witted, slow”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sl??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /slo?/
• Rhymes: -??

Adjective

slow (comparative slower, superlative slowest)

1. Taking a long time to move or go a short distance, or to perform an action; not quick in motion; proceeding at a low speed.

2. Not happening in a short time; spread over a comparatively long time.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost

     These changes in the heavens, though slow, produced / Like change on sea and land, sidereal blast.
3. Of reduced intellectual capacity; not quick to comprehend.
   • 1960, Dissertation Abstracts (volume 20, page 4007)

     Experienced classroom teachers are well acquainted with the attention-seeker, the shy girl, the aggressive boy, the poor concentrator, the slow student […]

4. Not hasty; not tending to hurry; acting with deliberation or caution.
   • 1999, Brian Paul Kaufman, K. Winston Caine, Prayer, Faith, and Healing: Cure Your Body, Heal Your Mind and Restore Your Soul

     And even after the emotional cast comes off, we need to be slow about getting deeply involved in a relationship again

   • 1611, King James Bible, Proverbs xiv 29

     He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding.

5. (of a clock or the like) Behind in time; indicating a time earlier than the true time.

6. Lacking spirit; deficient in liveliness or briskness.
7. (of a period of time) Not busy; lacking activity.

Synonyms

• (taking a long time to move a short distance): deliberate; moderate; see also Thesaurus:slow
• (not happening in a short time): gradual; see also Thesaurus:gradual
• (of reduced intellectual capacity): dull-witted; see also Thesaurus:stupid
• (acting with deliberation): careful, deliberate, prudent; see also Thesaurus:cautious
• (behind in time):
• (lacking spirit): boring, dilatory, dull, inactive, tardy, slothful, sluggish; see also Thesaurus:inactive or Thesaurus:boring
• (not busy): quiet, unbusy

Antonyms

• (taking a long time to move a short distance): fast, quick, rapid, swift; see also Thesaurus:speedy
• (not happening in a short time): abrupt, sudden; see also Thesaurus:sudden
• (of reduced intellectual capacity): keen, quick, quick-witted; see also Thesaurus:intelligent
• (acting with deliberation): hasty, precipitate, prompt; see also Thesaurus:prompt
• (behind in time): accurate, fast
• (lacking spirit): brisk, lively; see also Thesaurus:active
• (not busy): hectic

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

slow (third-person singular simple present slows, present participle slowing, simple past and past participle slowed)

1. (transitive) To make (something) run, move, etc. less quickly; to reduce the speed of.

2. (transitive) To keep from going quickly; to hinder the progress of.

3. (intransitive) To become slow; to slacken in speed; to decelerate.

   • After about a minute, the creek bed vomited the debris into a gently sloped meadow. Saugstad felt the snow slow and tried to keep her hands in front of her.

Synonyms

• (keep from going quickly): delay, hinder, retard
• (become slow): decelerate, slacken

Derived terms

• slower
• slow up
• slow down

Translations

Noun

slow (plural slows)

1. Someone who is slow; a sluggard.
2. (music) A slow song.

Adverb

slow (comparative slower, superlative slowest)

1. Slowly.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

     Let him have time to mark how slow time goes / In time of sorrow.

Anagrams

• Lows, OWLs, lows, owls, sowl

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English slow.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /slo/

Noun

slow m (plural slows)

1. slow waltz

See also

• quick

Further reading

• “slow” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [slow]

Noun

slow

1. genitive of sl?