Bumper

How to spell bumper

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bumper

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bumper mean?

1. nounA horizontal bar fixed to the front or rear of a vehicle to reduce damage in a collision.
2. adjectiveExceptionally large, plentiful, or generous in amount.

Bumper in a sentence

• noun

  The parking sensor warned him before the bumper touched the wall.

• adjective

  Warm weather and steady rain gave the farm a bumper harvest this year.

• noun

  A low-speed knock left a small crack in the rear bumper.

• adjective

  The shop reported a bumper profit over the holiday season.

Where does bumper come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows out of the English verb 'bump', which appeared in the late 1500s and was almost certainly imitative in origin, coined to echo the dull, heavy sound of one solid thing striking another. By adding the agent suffix '-er', speakers formed 'bumper' for a thing connected with bumping. Its earliest senses described a brimming cup or glass filled so full that it might knock against the table, and from there it came to mean anything unusually large or generous, as in a bumper harvest. When motor cars arrived, the bar fitted at the front and rear to absorb collisions naturally took the name 'bumper', since its whole job was to take the bump. The adjective and noun therefore share a single homely root, and the spelling stays regular: just 'bump' plus '-er', with no hidden letters to trip over.

How the word is built

• bump (verb/noun for a knock or collision)
• -er (agent/thing-that suffix)