Pump

How to spell pump

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pump

What does pump mean?

1. nounA device that moves liquid or gas by pushing or drawing it through pipes.
2. verbTo move liquid or gas using such a device, or to force something with a similar action.
3. nounA light, low-cut shoe without fastenings, such as a slip-on dress or court shoe.

Pump in a sentence

• noun

  The bicycle pump was missing from the shed.

• verb

  Engineers had to pump water out of the flooded basement.

• noun

  She slipped a black leather pump onto each foot before the interview.

• noun

  A faulty fuel pump left the car stranded on the motorway.

• verb

  The firm decided to pump extra funds into the failing project.

• noun

  The dance teacher asked every student to bring a soft ballet pump.

Where does pump come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

Pump appeared in English in the 1400s and is thought to have come from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German pompe, a word for a pipe or conduit used aboard ships to clear out water from the hold. Sailors and dock workers were the natural carriers of such a term, which is why it spread through the trading ports of northern Europe before settling into English. The deeper origin is widely held to be imitative, echoing the gulping or sucking noise made as water is drawn up through a tube, so the spelling reflects a sound rather than any older root meaning. From the literal seafaring device the meaning broadened to any machine that drives liquid or gas, and then to the verb 'to pump'. The shoe sense, a light slipper-like piece of footwear, is a separate development recorded from the 1500s whose origin is less certain.

How the word is built

• pump (single root, no affixes; likely imitative of the sucking or splashing sound the device makes)