Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to beg, to visit a house in the course of one’s travels as a beggar.

1599		Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 47: Down she sunk to the earth, as dead as a doore naile, and neuer mumpt crust after.
1624		Massinger Parliament of Love II i: And, when she finds she is all forsaken, Let my lady Pride repent in vain, and mump, And envy others’ markets.
1637		J. Taylor Drinke and Welcome 23: There are two Springs, which women (when they mump) / Or lumpish lowring from their eyes can pumpe.
a.1661		‘Bum-Fodder’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 55: Then let a Free Parliament be turn’d trump, / And ne’re think any longer the Nation to mump / With your pocky, perjur’d, damn’d old RUMP.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 21: When you came mumping helm a Larbour, / To look for shelter in my Harbour.
1705		N. Ward Honesty in Distress A2: Dame Honesty to Day [...] Wrap’d up in Rags, came Mumping to my Door.
1728		in Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 187: Consume you, cried he, you have been mumping about this neighbourhood more than three weeks; go.
c.1790		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Benevolent Epistle’ Works (1794) II 389: A Pair who mump, with millions in their purses.
1866		Maidstone Teleg. 19 May 3/6: The blacksmith mumped (begged) nearly every person on the road he met, and thus got a few pence.
1873		Sl. Dict. 232: Mump to beg. In Lincolnshire, Boxing-day is known as mumping day.
1882		Dundee Courier 18 Aug. 7/4: If that one was any hand at mumping she would not turn up here.
1882		Dundee Courier 15 Sept. 7/5: At night I mumped the shops.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 176: Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; / Rattle the tats, or mark the spot.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Cost Of Living’ Sporting Times 25 June 1/4: Though he musn’t borrow, steal, or mump, / There was one soft line still open, he could go into the ‘lump’.
1916		N. Douglas London Street Games 107: It’s just a dodge for mumping half-pennies.
1922		Hull Dly Mail 13 Dec. 6/5: To pass freely, without let or hindrance from any metagrobilizing rogues or mumping varlets.
1925		Dundee Courier 21 Dec. 4/2: It [i.e Dec. 21, St Thomas’ Day] is designated Mumping Day, because school children make a round of the mansion houses [...] with the object of begguing supplies for Christmas.
1938		Eve. Teleg. 21 Dec. 3/6: St Thomas [...] was formerly associated with the custom of ‘mumping,’ when poor folks went found the houses of their richer neighbours in the hope of getting the means of enjoyiong [...] hristmas.
1959		J. Gosling Ghost Squad 179: You’ve only been nipping me regularly for fourteen years. You’re a mumping old so-and-so.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 194: Mump, to To scrounge or to beg.

2. to cheat (out of); to deceive; thus mumping n. and adj.

1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 31: Venus, at that wriggling and mumping, / Cries, Pray young Man leave off your Frumping.
1672		Wycherley Love in a Wood I i: He watches like a younger Brother that is afraid to be mump’d of his snip.
1682		Behn City Heiress 59: How finely I had been mumpt now, if I had not shew’d your Ladyship trick for trick.
1708		‘Trip to Dunkirk’ in Harleian Misc. I (1808) 211: If he trusts to the Scots, he may chance a Tartar: / And, if he should fall in our clutches, ye know / He’d be damnably mump’d.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 121: The Devil confound you and your Mumpish Money too, you Mumping Son of a Mumping Bitch; you shall be damn’d before you shall Mump me so, you lousy Pimp you!
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 13: But still I like this damsel better. Yet, since you say we suffer slaughter, / Because I mump this parson’s daughter, / Then go she shall.
1786		J. O’Keeffe Wicklow Mountains 6: I’m an old, merry, jolly, lying, wicked, mumping, travelling merchant.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 149: If ye set up your gob, they’ll mump it, ar’s warn’d.

3. to obtain by begging.

1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘His Lincoln Form’ Sporting Times 12 Mar. 1/3: For the prossers who mump round for wets are aware / That he’s always like that before Lincoln!
1916		N. Douglas London Street Games 122: You don’t pay for fag-pictures: you mump them, see?
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 161: Mump, To: To cadge. To borrow.

4. to disappoint.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 767/1: 1700–40.

5. to eat.

1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 237: atrides, if I’m not mistaken, / Was mumping up a pound of bacon.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 133: Not durst sit upon his crupper, / But standing mump’d his crust for supper.

6. to talk seriously.

1857

‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue.