Bumped

How to spell bumped

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bumped

What does bumped mean?

1. verbKnocked against something or someone, usually by accident.
2. verbRemoved from a flight, reservation, or schedule because of overbooking or a higher priority.
3. verbRaised or increased a figure, level, or position by a noticeable amount.

Bumped in a sentence

• She bumped her head on the low doorframe while carrying the boxes.

• The airline bumped three passengers when the flight was oversold.

• Management bumped the budget after the early sales figures came in.

• The trolley bumped into the parked car as it rolled down the slope.

• Our reservation was bumped to accommodate a larger group.

• The supplier bumped the price by ten percent this quarter.

Where does bumped come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'bump' first appears in English in the late 1500s and is widely believed to be imitative in origin, that is, it was coined to echo the dull, heavy sound of one solid object striking another. From the very start it carried two linked ideas: the sound of a collision and the swelling lump that such a knock can leave behind. The form 'bumped' is simply the regular past tense, made by adding the ordinary '-ed' ending, and the single 'p' followed by '-ed' is the only real spelling point to watch. Over time the verb broadened well beyond physical knocks, so that one can be 'bumped' from a fully booked flight or have a price 'bumped' upward. Because the word is native and imitative rather than borrowed, it has no exotic foreign root to trace, which is why its etymology is short but its meanings have spread so widely.

How the word is built

• bump (imitative root: a knock or thump)
• -ed (past tense suffix)