slump

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English

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Etymology

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Probably of North Germanic origin: compare Danish slumpe (“to stumble upon by chance”), Norwegian slumpe (“happen by chance”), Swedish slumpa (“to sell off”). Compare also German schlumpen (“to trail; draggle; be sloppy”), dialectal Dutch slompen (“to walk clumsily”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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slump (third-person singular simple present slumps, present participle slumping, simple past and past participle slumped)

  1. (intransitive) To collapse heavily or helplessly.
    Exhausted, he slumped down onto the sofa.
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
      “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. […]”
  2. (intransitive) To decline or fall off in activity or performance.
    Real estate prices slumped during the recession.
    • 2011 October 29, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 3-5 Arsenal”, in BBC Sport:
      The Gunners captain demonstrated his importance to the team by taking his tally to an outstanding 28 goals in 27 Premier League games as Chelsea slumped again after their shock defeat at QPR last week.
    • 2021 December 29, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Problems galore in 2021...”, in RAIL, number 947, page 3:
      But in the week ending December 6, usage slumped from 72% of pre-pandemic numbers to just 56%, following revised advice that we should work from home again.
  3. (intransitive) To slouch or droop.
  4. (transitive) To lump; to throw together messily.
  5. To fall or sink suddenly through or in, when walking on a surface, as on thawing snow or ice, a bog, etc.
    • a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number). The Danger and Mischief of Delaying Repentance”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1830–1831, →OCLC:
      The latter walk on a bottomless quag, into which unawares they may slump.
  6. (transitive, slang) To cause to collapse; to hit hard; to render unconscious; to kill.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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slump (plural slumps)

  1. A heavy or helpless collapse; a slouching or drooping posture; a period of poor activity or performance, especially an extended period.
    1. (slang by extension) A period when a person goes without the expected amount of sex or dating.
      • 2004, Jonathan Tolins, The Last Sunday in June‎[1]:
        TOM. We haven't had sex with each other in five months.
        MICHAEL. We're in a slump, I know that."
  2. A measure of the fluidity of freshly mixed concrete, based on how much the concrete formed in a standard slump cone sags when the cone is removed.
  3. (geology) A form of mass wasting in which a coherent mass of loosely consolidated materials or a rock layer moves a short distance down a slope.
  4. (geology, loosely) A crater or depression (an area where the ground slumps) which forms as a result of such wasting. (A large crater is colloquially called a megaslump.)
    • 2022 September 8, Mark Brownlow, Elizabeth White, Frozen Planet II, Random House, →ISBN:
      The biggest slump in the world - a mega-slump - is in the Russian taiga. Known as the Batagaika crater, it is a kilometre-long gash in the ground, about 70 metres deep, and growing […]
  5. (UK, dialect) A boggy place.
    • 1880, William Hugh Patterson, A Glossary of Words in Use in the Counties of Antrim and Down:
      The road was all slumps of holes.
    • 1911, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, Rose of the Wilderness, page 165:
      It was neither seemly nor befitting that so great an occasion should have its solemnity defaced by leaping-poles or four hands crossed cradlewise to convey the bridal finery over “slump” or “quakkin'-qua[g]”!
  6. (Scotland) The noise made by anything falling into a hole, or into a soft, miry place.
  7. (Scotland) The gross amount; the mass; the lump.
  8. A cobbler-like dessert cooked on a stove.
    a blackberry slump

Derived terms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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Norwegian Nynorsk

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Etymology

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From the verb slumpa.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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slump m (definite singular slumpen, indefinite plural slumpar, definite plural slumpane)

  1. random event, chance, happenstance
    Eg valde han ut på slump.
    I picked it randomly.
  2. a good amount, quite a bit
    Eg vann ein god slump pengar i går.
    I won quite a bit of money yesterday.

Verb

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slump

  1. imperative of slumpa

Further reading

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Spanish

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Noun

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slump m (plural slumps)

  1. slump (decline)

Swedish

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Middle Low German slump.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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slump c

  2. (uncountable) chance, randomness, happenstance
    Det var nog mest slumpen som avgjorde vem som vann
    It was probably mostly [the] chance that determined who won
    Inget lämnas åt slumpen
    Nothing is left to [the] chance (idiomatic)
    Det är nog bara slumpen
    It's probably just a coincidence / random chance
  3. (countable (but rarely plural)) a coincidence, (sometimes) an accident, a fluke, etc.
    Synonym: tillfällighet
    – Jag tror inte att det är en slump att tre hus brann ner samma natt. – Nej, det är nog ingen slump.
    – I don't think it's a coincidence that three houses burned down the same night. – No, it's probably not a coincidence.
    en lycklig slump
    a happy accident
  4. a last remainder of something, (often) residual stocks
    sälja slumpen
    sell residual stocks
    slumpen i ölflaskan
    the last beer in the bottle

Usage notes

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Thought of as a kind of entity in (sense 1), hence usually in the definite – "the randomness."

Declension

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Declension of slump
nominative genitive
singular indefinite slump slumps
definite slumpen slumpens
plural indefinite slumpar slumpars
definite slumparna slumparnas

Derived terms

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References

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