Other forms: clumps, clumping, clumped
A clump is a tight group of plants or things growing together. A clump of trees, clumps of grass, growing in clumps.
It implies natural grouping rather than arrangement — a clump of trees grew that way and an avenue did not. In cooking and mixing, clumps are the fault that lumpy describes. As a verb, to clump also means to walk heavily, which is a separate imitative sense. Note clumpy; and that the word comes from a Germanic root meaning a lump.
1nounclumpA tight group of plants or things growing together.
“A clump of daffodils grew at the foot of the old oak tree.”
2verbwalkTo walk heavily.
“We could hear him clumping up the stairs in his heavy boots.”
clump is a tight group.
Old English clympre meant a lump of metal, from a Germanic root about lumps. Clamp and clip come from the same family.
Middle Low German
klumpe
Middle Dutch
clompe
Proto-Indo-European
*glembʰ- — lump, clamp
Proto-Germanic
*klumpô — mass, lump, clump; clasp
Old English
clymppe
Middle English
clompe
English, today
clump
Built from
From Middle English clompe, from Old English clymppe, a variant of clympre (“a lump or mass of metal”), from Proto-Germanic klumpô (“mass, lump, clump; clasp”), from Proto-Indo-European glembʰ- (“lump, clamp”). Alternatively, possibly from Middle Dutch clompe or Middle Low German klumpe (compare German Klumpen). a doublet of klomp. Cognates include Danish klump (probably from Low German as well). Compare Norwegian Bokmål klump.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire