Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hump v.1

1. to have sexual intercourse [the hump in the man’s back, when in the ‘missionary position’; orig. UK until early 19C, then to the US early 20C; revived in UK mid-20C+].

J. Shirley Constant Maid III i: Old madam hump-a-pump.
[UK]T. Duffet Epilogue Spoken by Heccate and Three Witches 31: I pick’d Shop-keeper up, and went to th’ Sun. He Houncht ... and Houncht ... and Houncht; And when h’ had done, Pay me quoth I.
[UK]Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 677: The venerable Abbot of Castilliers, the very same who never cared to hump his chambermaids but when he was in pontificalibus.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Hump, to hump, once a fashionable word for copulation.
[UK]‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 39: Let me know [...] / how often, as yet, your new couch you have humpt on.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
[Aus]Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 86: HUMP: vulgar to cohabit with a woman.
[US](con. 1915) ‘W.W. Windstaff’ ‘A Flier’s War’ in Longstreet Canvas Falcons (1970) 271: ‘Uloo, Tommy. Zig-zig wif me?’ ‘After the war.’ ‘Go ’ump you grandmère!’.
[US] in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 298: He learned it near Berryville, Arkansas, about 1910. [...] ‘Says I to her what is the price? / She says give me a dollar an’ you can hump me twice.’.
[US]J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 164: Drink anything that’s going and hump when I can.
[US]N. Heard Howard Street 96: As the john humped, she could search through their pockets.
[US]D. Goines Swamp Man 108: As long as Jake didn’t find out which black gal they were humping.
[US]‘Heat Moon’ Blue Highways 101: Whiteys [...] don’t mind a little black poontang now and then. That’s their contribution to equality — hump a nigger.
[US]J. Ellroy ‘Gravy Train’ in Pronzini & Adrian Hard-Boiled (1995) 494: Basko was trying to hump the Lab.
[NZ]A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 42: It may as well be a sheep from a paddock, a piece of meat that ya hump in and out till you’re spent.
[US]‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 12: I humped her hooters harder to push my dick closer to her succulent mouth.
[US]C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 172: Chaz was trying to hump his hippie date.
Skins ser.1 ep.3 [TV script] I wanna hump you silly.
[Aus]L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] [M]aintaining the illusion that humping a carpet offcut in front of a bunch of baying drunks seriously got me off.
[US]T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 85: We were humping our brains out just this morning .
[Scot](con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 42: She’s been humping this big fermer’s boy fae West Calder.
[US]J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 34: I hired him to hump the husband of a divorce-seeking dowager.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

[US]W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 26: There was actually a porno documentary pasted between the hump flicks as ‘bonus programming’.

3. lit. + fig. uses of SE hump, to make a hump in one’s back f. effort etc.

(a) (Aus./US) to take pride in oneself, to fancy oneself; thus humped, proud.

[US]W.T. Porter Quarter Race in Kentucky and Other Sketches 177: Ef thar are anything he humps hisself on besides ugly, it is his manners among the fimmales.
[Aus]Dead Bird (Sydney) 19 Oct. 7/3: The Hillgrave people are [...] humped on their slugging abilities.
[US]C. McKay Home to Harlem 213: How the brown-skin babies am humping it along! Strutting the joy-stuff! Invitation for a shimmy.

(b) (US) to exert oneself, to work hard; as imp. hump yourself!, get on with it!

[US]W.T. Porter Big Bear of Arkansas (1847) 126: He was breathin’ sorter hard, his eye set on the Governor, humpin’ himself on politics.
[US]Cadiz Democratic Sentinel (OH) 30 May 1/2: What you doin’ you lazy loafin’ nigger? [...] hump yo’sef! You idle, stupid fellow.
[US]‘Mark Twain’ Roughing It 32: Our party made this specimen [i.e. a jack-rabbit] ‘hump himself,’ as the conductor said.
[US](con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 92: Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 12/1: He would have liked to strike and say he would not hump any more adjective grass, but the poor garden coster’s donkey daren’t – it was more than his place was worth.
[UK]Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 16 Aug. 6/1: Tony [Pastor] is humping himself to give the public what they want, and is succeeding very well.
[US]Ade Artie (1963) 94: I’m goin’ against a tough proposition, and I’ve got to hump myself to keep up.
[US]S.E. White Blazed Trail 160: Our boys died doing their duty – the way a riverman ought to. Now hump yourselves! Don’t let ’em die in vain!
[UK]Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 256: Hump yourself.
[US]H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 27: Hump yourself now and git out this here order!
[US]J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 313: From now on, you’re gonna hump.
[US]O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 192: Hump yoreself, yu makeshift; there’s some tall climbin’ ahead o’ yu.
[US]R. Bissell High Water 157: We will have to hump to get through Canton tomorrow, though, by God.
[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 15: All whores have one thing in common just like the chumps humping for the white boss.
[US]M. Cherry On High Steel 69: All you do is hump yourself blue in the face.
[US]L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 5: Humping and hauling ass all the way.
[US]T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 12: The team leader [...] told me to circumvent the field and hump through the jungle to investigate a small mound of loose red dirt.

(c) (US) to travel fast, of people or objects.

[US]Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 316/2: Hump, move quick.
[US]J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 210: Just a big rube that’s read the bosses’ ads an’ come a-humpin’ to town for the big wages.
Milwaukee Jrnl (Accent) 9 Jan 1/6: hump: to run rapidly.
[US]H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: humping v. 1. walking rapidly.
[US]J. Wambaugh Onion Field 174: [of fast driving] Crist said, ‘Screw the beat. Let’s hump.’ Odom drove [at] one hundred and forty miles per hour.
[US](con. 1969) C.R. Anderson Grunts xiii: In the bush the grunts humped, walked, after two enemies, the VC [...] and the NVA. [Ibid.] 49: Just how fucking far we gotta hump today, anyway?

(d) (US/Aus.) to carry heavy objects; esp. in milit. use, patrolling with a heavy pack, weapon, supplies etc.

implied in hump one’s swag under swag n.1
[NZ]J. Goldie 3rd Diary 19 Feb. in Beattie Pioneers explore Otago (1947) 147: Digger custom, we humped our swag containing our house, our bed, our grub, and the necessary instruments .
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Jan. 5/4: Now mount your musty pulpit – thump, / And muddle fat clod-hoppers, / And let some long-eared booby ‘hump’ / The plate about for coppers.
[Aus]H. Lawson ‘Romance of the Swag’ in Roderick (1972) 499: I’ve helped hump and drag telegraph poles up cliffs [...] where horses couldn’t go.
[UK]Dagger [London] Dec. I 5/2: Get off this blinkin’ planet / If you ’opes to ’ump your pack.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Feb. 9/3: [H]umping Australian wheat from the land where it was rotting .
[UK](con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 122: Hump, To: To lift. To carry.
[Ire]‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 64: The brother has the landlady humped down to Skerries.
[Aus]D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 47: Two other women came in humping grizzling babies.
[UK](con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 7: You could have scraped more gold and silver of our kitchen hearth than Snow White’s little mob could have humped in a week.
[Aus]S. Gore Holy Smoke 14: You got yer sword and yer spear, and yer shield that that other mug’s humping for yer.
[UK]P. Theroux Family Arsenal 223: I’d give you a good price and hump it up to the King’s Road.
[UK]S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 94: You think I am a powder puff or soggy stuff thus to be shaped to humping ladies’ underwear round retailers.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 204: I don’t care if you see them hump out a side of beef.
[US]P. Roth Human Stain 255: We did a lot of humpin’, but sooner or later you knew you’d get back to that fifty.
[UK]K. Richards Life 93: I need money to hump these drums on the tube.

(e) (orig. Aus.) often constr. with it, to tramp, to trudge, to go on foot; also in fig. use.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 9 May 9/2: In the translation, the ‘comedy’ appeared to have been left behind, and the stupidity alone humped along.
[Aus]‘Steele Rudd’ On Our Selection (1953) 5: So we humped it—and talk about a drag!
[Aus]K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 270: So we humped it.
[US]H.S. Thompson letter 6 June in Proud Highway (1997) 342: Then hump around the streets waiting for Time to tell me what happened.
[Ire]H. Leonard Da (1981) Act II: I think I’ll hump off.
[US]T. O’Brien Going After Cacciato (1980) 16: Humping to Paris, it was one of those crazy things.
[US]J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 346: We’re humping up the seven steps to Tommy’s building.

4. fig. uses of sense 1, on model of fuck v. (2)

(a) to botch, to spoil.

[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
[UK](con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 228/1: Then there was poor Jael Denny, but she was humped, sir, and I’ve told you the reason.
[UK]C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. 51: To ‘hump,’ in street parlance, is equivalent to ‘botch,’ in more genteel colloquialism.

(b) (US) to beat up.

[US]J. London ‘And ’Frisco Kid Came Back’ in High School Aegis X (4 Nov.) 2–4: I tole ’m how me ole man uster ’ump me ole woman w’en he got an edge on.

(c) as a dismissive v. or excl.

[US]Northern Trib. (Cheboygan, MI) 5 Nov. 3/1: I told that rooster to ‘hump himself’.
[US]E. O’Neill Beyond the Horizon I ii: Hump! You’re pilin’ lie on lie!
[US]H. Robbins Dream Merchants 248: If they don’t like it, they can go hump ’emselves.
[US]J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 178: Hump your old King [...] Bollocks the King.
[Ire]P. Boyle At Night All Cats Are Grey 250: Hump you, I’ll bloody soon wipe that look off your dial.
[Ire]P. O’Farrell Book of Irish Farmers’ Jokes 41: And hump you and your bloomin’ gate.
[Ire]H. Leonard Out After Dark 152: Hump the girls.
[Ire]RTÉ Radio News 8 July I was told I should just have told him to hump off [BS].
[UK]D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 122: I see Man U humped you guys at the weekend.

(d) to make someone else suffer, to exploit, to harm.

[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 104/1: hump v. [...] 2. To cheat; to send to prison unjustly; to abuse or maltreat.
[US]E. Torres Carlito’s Way 5: Them’s the humped — I’m going with the humpers. [Ibid.] 85: They was humping me on the deal.
[US]C. Cook Robbers (2001) 4: Just more folks humping the dollar.

(e) to suffer.

[US]C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 190: She was going to hump it.

In compounds

In phrases

hump and dump (v.) [dump v. (8)]

to have sex with a woman then discard her, thus hump ’em and dump ’ema popular male catchphrase suggesting that seduction and then abandonment are the best ways of relating to women.

[UK]C. Jennings Mouthful of Rocks 154: I had to persuade Uta that I needed to be back at the barracks before 5.00 am so that it wouldn’t look as though it was hump and dump .
[US]Wheatus [song title] ‘Hump ’Em ’n’ Dump ’Em.’.
hump it (v.) (also hump off)

1. to leave.

[UK]A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 29: But before we ’umped it, Ruth made ’im take ’is jacket off.
[US]W. Styron Set This House on Fire 413: ‘Hump it, boy.’ Cass humped it.
[Ire]P. Boyle All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 50: He aims a kick at a terrier dog about to lift a leg against the door jamb. ‘Hump off!’.
[US]I. Faust Willy Remembers 89: While we were humping it there to here.
[Ire]T. Murphy Conversations on a Homecoming (1986) 25: Well, says he, stick your neck now back in your trousers and hump off.
[US]T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 83: I want you off this base and I want you to hump it off this base.

2. to die.

[UK]J. Manchon Le Slang.
hump one’s bluey/drum/Matilda/swag (v.)

see under relevant n.