Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) delirium tremens.

1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 176: With his ‘jumps,’ rather worse / Than he'd felt them before; / For he'd boozed very late overnight at the Mess.
1879		J. Payn ‘Captain Cole Passenger’ in High Spirits II 203: He had been drinking, and in fact was on the verge of ‘the jumps,’ which is what the Yankees term delerium tremens.
1884		Sporting Times 26 Jan. 1/4: ‘Can you [...] carry people to bed?’ ‘And hold them down when they have the jumps?’.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Oct. 8/2: Though genuine hops may be used for that stuff / ’Tis better to booze at the pumps, / For those dreadful long beers, if imbibed long enough, / Will soon produce genuine ‘jumps.’.
1908		H. Lawson ‘“Roll Up at Talbragar”’ in Roderick (1972) 749: You’ve got der yoomps, Pen.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Sept. 11/1: When our tars have gone a-cruising in some ports in foreign parts / We have known ’em get the ‘jim-jams’ and the ‘jumps,’ / And the grog that’s made by Roosians / Undermines their constitootions; / But we never knew that sailors got the mumps.
1927		‘Sl. Expressions for Drunk’ New Republic in AS XVI:1 (1941) 9 Mar. 70: [...] has the jumps.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 77: I need a drink, Mac. I’ve got the jumps.
1941		‘Thanks For The Memory’ in M. Page Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 72: Yankee beer that’s far too dear, and gives us all the jumps.

2. (US) nervousness.

1902		Ade Breaking Into Society (1904) 90: He began to look Wild out of the Eyes and had a severe Case of the Jumps.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 25 Oct. 3/4: ‘[I]t comes from a microbe called “the jumps,” wot is in ther blood o’ them coves an’ keeps ’em allus rushin’ about’.
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 250: ‘I got the jumps a little,’ said the woman.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:2 97: Faith, sorr, it looks as if the niggers got the jumps.
1922		‘Sapper’ Black Gang 269: For heaven’s sake, Zaboleff, don’t get the jumps.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 71: The driver looked so much like the bird that had driven Dot Ellis on her last trip that it gave me the jumps.
1945		A. Christie Sparkling Cyanide (1955) 114: She looked rather as though she had the jumps herself.
1945		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 3 Feb. A14: Mack spilled coffee on his vest and got a severe case of the jumps.
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 256: But just one cat alone – well, you get the jumps.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 43: He had the jumps so bad he couldn’t sit still.

3. excitement, ‘the fidgets’.

1929

D. Parker ‘The Last Tea’ in Penguin Dorothy Parker (1982) 182: It gave me the jumps, thinking about going down there and sitting at that desk.