Definition

1. Noun:

   • A rounded lump or protuberance: A hump is a rounded, often permanent, raised area on a surface, especially on the back of an animal or a person.
   • A difficult or critical point: Informally, a hump can refer to the most challenging part of a process or period.

2. Verb:

   • To arch into a hump: To bend or curve the back upward, creating a rounded shape.
   • Vulgar slang: To have sexual intercourse with someone.
   • To carry or lift something heavy, especially on the back or shoulders: To transport a load with effort.

Usage Examples

• Noun:

  • The dromedary camel has a single large hump on its back.
  • The project is finally over the hump; the hardest part is done.

• Verb:

  • The cat will hump its back when it feels threatened.
  • (Vulgar) The crude joke suggested the man wanted to hump his neighbor.
  • We had to hump all our camping gear up the mountain trail.

Advanced Usage

• "Over the hump": Past the most difficult part of a task or period.

  • After working 80-hour weeks for a month, the team is finally over the hump.

• "Get the hump" / "Have the hump" (British informal): To become or be annoyed, sulky, or in a bad mood.

  • He really got the hump when he wasn't invited to the meeting.

Variants and Related Words

• Humped (adj): Having a hump or shaped like a hump.

  • The humped bridge over the river was very picturesque.

• Humpback (n): A back deformed by a hump; also a type of whale.

  • We saw a humpback whale breach the surface.

Synonyms

• Noun (for a protuberance): Bump, bulge, lump, mound, protuberance, prominence.
• Verb (for arching): Arch, curve, hunch.
• Verb (for carrying): Lug, haul, schlep (informal).

Phrasal Verbs / Related Phrases

• Hump along: To move or progress with difficulty or effort.
  • The old truck could only hump along at 30 miles per hour up the steep hill.

Related Idioms

• "Hump day" (informal, chiefly US & Canada): Wednesday, regarded as the midpoint of the working week.
  • It's hump day! The weekend is in sight.

Noun

1. something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings
   • the gun in his pocket made an obvious bulge
   • the hump of a camel
   • he stood on the rocky prominence
   • the occipital protuberance was well developed
   • the bony excrescence between its horns

Verb

1. have sexual intercourse with
   • This student sleeps with everyone in her dorm
   • Adam knew Eve
   • Were you ever intimate with this man?
2. round one's back by bending forward and drawing the shoulders forward