Word of the Day

: December 9, 2018

galumph

verb guh-LUMF

What It Means

: to move with a clumsy heavy tread

galumph in Context

Mary's teenage son galumphed into the house and flung himself onto the couch, sighing heavily.

"Incredibly, a massive rhinoceros comes galumphing toward us as rapidly as something that weighs more than two tons and resembles a tank on four legs can move." — Barbara Marshall, The Palm Beach (Florida) Post, 27 Aug. 2017

Did You Know?

Bump, thump, thud. There's no doubt about it—when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. Galumph first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: "He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." Etymologists suspect Carroll created galumph by altering the word gallop, perhaps throwing in a pinch of triumphant for good measure (in its earliest uses, galumph did convey a sense of exultant bounding). Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of galumph, because they began plying it in their own prose, and it has been clumping around our language ever since.