thump

noun

1. 1

   A blow that produces a muffled sound.

   ... and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

   The watchman gave so very great a thump at my door last night, that I awakened at the knock.

2. 2

   The sound of such a blow; a thud.

   An interesting feature of the church is the invisible clock, which you can hear thumping away as you enter. Constructed in 1525, it is one of the oldest timepieces in England. It chimes the hours and the quarters, and every three hours it plays a hymn. But it has no faces.

3. 3

   datedUsed to replace the vulgar or blasphemous element in "what the hell" and similar phrases.

   Where the thump have you been?!

4. 4

   Synonym of bump (“sudden movement of underground strata”).

verb

1. 1

   To hit (someone or something) as if to make a thump.

   These bastard Bretons, whom our fathers / Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd.

   Kasper Schmeichel brilliantly denied Marouane Chamakh before Bacary Sagna thumped home a second, though Bradley Johnson's screamer halved the deficit.

2. 2

   To cause to make a thumping sound.

   The cat thumped its tail in irritation.

3. 3

   To thud or pound.

4. 4

   To throb with a muffled rhythmic sound.

   Dance music thumped from the nightclub entrance.

   Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.

5. 5

   (of a rabbit) to hit the ground with the back legs to signal agitation.

Forms

plural

thumps

past tense

thumped

past participle

thumped

present participle

thumping

third person singular

thumps