Word: jump Part of Speech: noun Etymology: 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. The OED suggests an imitative origin. 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”). Pronunciation: /d͡ʒʌmp/, /d͡ʒʊmp/ 1. The act of jumping; a leap; a spring; a bound. Example: To advance by jumps. 2. An effort; an attempt; a venture. Example: Our fortune lies / Upon this jump. 3. A dislocation in a stratum; a fault. 4. An abrupt interruption of level in a piece of brickwork or masonry. 5. An instance of propelling oneself upwards. Example: The boy took a skip and a jump down the lane. 6. An object which causes one to jump; a ramp. Example: The skier flew off the jump and landed perfectly. 7. An instance of causing oneself to fall from an elevated location. Example: There were a couple of jumps from the bridge. 8. An instance of employing a parachute to leave an aircraft or elevated location. Example: She was terrified before the jump, but was thrilled to be skydiving. 9. An instance of reacting to a sudden stimulus by jerking the body. 10. A jumping move in a board game. Example: the knight's jump in chess 11. A button (of a joypad, joystick or similar device) used to make a video game character jump (propel itself upwards). Example: Press jump to start. 12. An obstacle that forms part of a showjumping course, and that the horse has to jump over cleanly. Example: Heartless managed the scale the first jump but fell over the second. 13. An early start or an advantage. Labels: with-on Example: He got a jump on the day because he had laid out everything the night before. Example: Their research department gave them the jump on the competition. 14. A discontinuity in the graph of a function, where the function is continuous in a punctured interval of the discontinuity. 15. 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. 16. Any abrupt increase; a sudden rise; a hike Labels: slang Example: a dramatic jump in prices Example: 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. 17. An instance of faster-than-light travel, not observable from ordinary space. 18. A change of the path of execution to a different location. 19. Ellipsis of jump-start. Labels: US, abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, informal Example: My car won't start. Could you give me a jump? 20. Clipping of jump cut. Labels: abbreviation, alt-of, clipping 21. Synonym of one-night stand (“single evening's performance”). Example: Next jump will be at the Chicago Theater, Chicago.