jump

jump

See also: Jump

English

Pronunciation

  • enPR: jŭmp, IPA(key): /d͡ʒʌmp/
    • Audio (General American):(file)
    • Audio (US):(file)
  • (Northern England) IPA(key): /d͡ʒʊmp/
  • Rhymes: -ʌmp

Etymology 1

From Middle English jumpen (“to walk quickly, run, jump”), probably of Middle Low German or North Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *gumpōną ~ *gumbōną (“to hop, skip, bounce”), an iterative verb.[1] The OED suggests an imitative origin.[2] Related to jumble. In the sense “to propel oneself” it displaced leap partially and spring largely.

Cognates

Cognate with German Low German jumpen (“to jump”), archaic German gumpen (“to jump, hop, bounce”), dialectal German gampen (“to hop”), Alemannic German gumpe (“to leap, jump”), Walser dialect kumpu, Old Norse gopta (“to jump; make jump”) Danish gumpe (“to jolt”), Swedish gumpa (“to jump”), Danish gimpe (“to move up and down”), Middle English jumpren, jumbren (“to mix, jumble”).

Verb

jump (third-person singular simple present jumps, present participle jumping, simple past and past participle jumped)

  1. (intransitive) To propel oneself rapidly upward, downward and/or in any horizontal direction such that momentum causes the body to become airborne.
    The boy jumped over a fence.
    Kangaroos are known for their ability to jump high.
    • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:
      Not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the square.
    • 2022 June 16, Issy Ronald, “Meet the parkour athletes defying fear and gravity at Red Bull Art of Motion”, in CNN‎[2], archived from the original on 26 June 2022:
      Parkour – often referred to as freerunning – entails creatively moving through an urban environment: flipping, jumping and vaulting across various obstacles.
  2. (intransitive) To cause oneself to leave an elevated location and fall downward.
    She is going to jump from the diving board.
  3. (transitive) To pass by means of a spring or leap; to overleap.
    to jump a stream
  4. (intransitive) To employ a parachute to leave an aircraft or elevated location.
  5. (intransitive) To jerk the body involuntarily in response to a sudden or unexpected stimulus.
    That balloon popping made me jump.
    He jumped when he looked up to see a man standing before him.
  6. (intransitive, figuratively) To increase sharply, to rise, to shoot up.
    Share prices jumped by 10% after the company announced record profits.
  7. (intransitive) To employ a move in certain board games where one game piece is moved from one legal position to another passing over the position of another piece.
    The player's knight jumped the opponent's bishop.
  8. (transitive) To move to a position (in a queue/line) that is further forward.
    I hate it when people jump the queue.
  9. (transitive) To pass (a traffic light) when it is indicating that one should stop.
  10. (transitive) To attack suddenly and violently.
    Coordinate terms: ambush, waylay
    The hoodlum jumped a woman in the alley.
  11. (transitive, slang) To engage in sexual intercourse with (a person).
  12. (transitive) To cause to jump.
    The rider jumped the horse over the fence.
  13. (transitive) To move the distance between two opposing subjects.
  14. (transitive) To increase the height of a tower crane by inserting a section at the base of the tower and jacking up everything above it.
  15. (cycling, intransitive) To increase speed aggressively and without warning.
  16. (transitive, obsolete) To expose to danger; to risk; to hazard.
  17. (transitive, smithwork) To join by a buttweld.
  18. To thicken or enlarge by endwise blows; to upset.
  19. (quarrying) To bore with a jumper.
  20. To jump-start a car or other vehicle with a dead battery, as with jumper cables.
    • 2000, United States. Employees' Compensation Appeals Board, Decisions of the Employees' Compensation Appeals Board: Index digest, page 511:
      [Someone] and Mr. Benfield were at the corner of Elm and Walton Streets when they were approached by Mr. Gray, who asked for help to jump his car. When informed they did not have jumper cables, Mr. Gray asked them to take him to get some.
    • 2015 January 30, Robert M. Morgan, Janet Turner Parish, George Deitz, Handbook on Research in Relationship Marketing, Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 250:
      […] his wife, who was at home with their children, would drive to school to jump his car; both would drive home; […]
  21. (obsolete) To coincide; to agree; to accord; to tally; followed by with.
  22. (intransitive, programming) To start executing code from a different location, rather than following the program counter.
    • 2008, Garry Robinson, Real World Microsoft Access Database Protection and Security:
      When this section is completed, the code generally jumps back to the Exit Section, and the procedure is closed.
  23. (intransitive, slang, archaic) To flee; to make one's escape.
    • 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red-Headed League:
      “It's all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!”
      Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts.
  24. (intransitive, figurative) To shift one's position or attitude, especially suddenly and significantly.
    The administration is jumping back from that message.
    Think hard before you jump towards a particular solution.
  25. (intransitive, biology, of DNA) To switch locations on chromosomes.
  26. (intransitive, slang) To commit suicide.
Conjugation
Conjugation of jump
infinitive (to) jump
present tense past tense
1st-person singular jump jumped
2nd-person singular jump, jumpest† jumped, jumpedst†
3rd-person singular jumps, jumpeth† jumped
plural jump
subjunctive jump jumped
imperative jump —
participles jumping jumped

† Archaic or obsolete.

Synonyms
Derived terms

See also jumped, jamp, jumper and jumping

Translations
propel oneself rapidly upward such that momentum causes the body to become airborne — see also leap
react to a sudden stimulus by jerking the body violently
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

jump (plural jumps)

  1. The act of jumping; a leap; a spring; a bound.
  2. An effort; an attempt; a venture.
  3. (mining) A dislocation in a stratum; a fault.
  4. (architecture) An abrupt interruption of level in a piece of brickwork or masonry.
  5. An instance of propelling oneself upwards.
    The boy took a skip and a jump down the lane.
  7. An object which causes one to jump; a ramp.
    The skier flew off the jump and landed perfectly.
  8. An instance of causing oneself to fall from an elevated location.
    There were a couple of jumps from the bridge.
  9. An instance of employing a parachute to leave an aircraft or elevated location.
    She was terrified before the jump, but was thrilled to be skydiving.
  10. An instance of reacting to a sudden stimulus by jerking the body.
  11. A jumping move in a board game.
    the knight's jump in chess
  12. A button (of a joypad, joystick or similar device) used to make a video game character jump (propel itself upwards).
    Press jump to start.
  13. (sports, equestrianism) An obstacle that forms part of a showjumping course, and that the horse has to jump over cleanly.
    Heartless managed the scale the first jump but fell over the second.
  14. (with on) An early start or an advantage.
    He got a jump on the day because he had laid out everything the night before.
    Their research department gave them the jump on the competition.
  15. (mathematics) A discontinuity in the graph of a function, where the function is continuous in a punctured interval of the discontinuity.
  16. (physics, hydrodynamics) An abrupt increase in the height of the surface of a flowing liquid at the location where the flow transitions from supercritical to subcritical, involving an abrupt reduction in flow speed and increase in turbulence.
  17. (slang) Any abrupt increase; a sudden rise; a hike
    a dramatic jump in prices
    • 2025 November 3, Alex Kozul-Wright and News Agencies, “UK train stabbing attack – how it unfolded and what we know now”, in Aljazeera‎[3]:
      the number of serious offences in England and Wales involving a knife or sharp object recorded in the year ending March 2024 was 54 percent higher – a jump of nearly 22,000 cases – than the figure for 2016.
  18. (science fiction) An instance of faster-than-light travel, not observable from ordinary space.
  19. (programming) A change of the path of execution to a different location.
  20. (US, informal, automotive) Ellipsis of jump-start.
    My car won't start. Could you give me a jump?
  21. (film) Clipping of jump cut.
  22. (theater) Synonym of one-night stand (“single evening's performance”).
    • 1950 December 23, Billboard, page 36:
      Next jump will be at the Chicago Theater, Chicago.
Quotations
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:jump.
Synonyms
  • (instance of propelling oneself into the air): leap
  • (instance of causing oneself to fall from an elevated location):
  • (instance of employing a parachute to leave an aircraft or elevated location):
  • (instance of reacting to a sudden stimulus by jerking the body): flinch, jerk, twitch
Derived terms
Translations
instance of reacting to a sudden stimulus by jerking the body
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adverb

jump (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) Exactly; precisely
    • c. 1599–1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 1, lines 64–65:
      Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
      With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Synonyms

Adjective

jump (comparative more jump, superlative most jump)

  1. (obsolete) Exact; matched; fitting; precise.

References

  1. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), “PGm. *gump/bōn- w.v. 'to hop'”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11)‎[1], Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN
  2. ^ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Jump”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.

Etymology 2

Compare French jupe (“a long petticoat, a skirt”) and English jupon.

Noun

jump (plural jumps)

  1. A kind of loose jacket for men.

Chinese

Etymology

From English jump.

Pronunciation

Verb

jump

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, neologism, euphemistic) to commit suicide by jumping from a building; to jump to one's death

Synonyms

Cypriot Arabic

Root
j-m-p
2 terms

Etymology

From Arabic جَنْب (janb).

Preposition

jump

  1. beside
  2. to, towards

References

  • Borg, Alexander (2004), A Comparative Glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Arabic–English) (Handbook of Oriental Studies; I.70), Leiden and Boston: Brill, page 189

Scots

Etymology

From English jump.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /d͡ʒʌmp/, [d͡ʒʌmp]

Verb

jump (third-person singular simple present jumps, present participle jumpin, simple past jamp,jumpit, past participle jumpit)

  1. to jump
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.