bumbershoot

noun

bum·​ber·​shoot ˈbəm-bər-ˌshüt 

plural bumbershoots

US, informal

: umbrella sense 1

Mr. Whifflebottom shifted to his other arm the long black bumbershoot he carried ever with him, against the rain that seldom came, even as he wore always knee-high rubber boots for the same reason.

—Harry Stephen Keeler

A bumbershoot is exactly the same as an umbrella, but it's a much better word. The bumber bit is a variant of brolly, and the shoot is there because it looks a little bit like a parachute.

—Mark Forsyth

… the sort of writer who won't say umbrella when he can say bumbershoot.

—Malcolm Jones

Did you know?

Umbrellas have plenty of nicknames. In Britain, brolly is a popular alternative to the more staid umbrella. Sarah Gamp, a fictional nurse who toted a particularly large umbrella in Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit, has inspired some English speakers to dub oversize versions gamps. Bumbershoot is a predominantly American nickname, one that has been recorded as a whimsical, slightly irreverent handle for umbrellas since the late 1800s. As with most slang terms, the origins of bumbershoot are a bit foggy, but it appears that the bumber is a modification of the umbr- in umbrella and the shoot is an alteration of the -chute in parachute (since an open parachute looks a little like an umbrella).

Examples of bumbershoot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But expressing disdain for the bumbershoot has become somewhat of a local pastime, and some locals consider not carrying an umbrella to be an unspoken rule in the Emerald City. —Melissa Santos, Axios, 2 Dec. 2024

The show also expands the familiar story to include a castor-oil-dispensing nanny nemesis for our bumbershoot-sailing Miss Poppins. —Web Behrens, chicagotribune.com, 24 Nov. 2019

Word History

Etymology

bumber- (alteration of umbr- in umbrella) + -shoot (alteration of -chute in parachute)

First Known Use

1876, in the meaning defined above

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