lumpen

American

[luhm-puhn] / ˈlʌm pən /

adjective

of or relating to disfranchised and uprooted individuals or groups, especially those who have lost status.

the lumpen bourgeoisie.

noun

a lumpen individual or group.

lumpen British

/ ˈlʌmpən /

adjective

informal stupid or unthinking

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of lumpen

First recorded in 1945–50; extracted from lumpenproletariat

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

To get there, we had to follow the Ukrainian soldiers on foot - within a few paces my boots become lumpen and heavy with thick dirt.

From BBC • Mar. 16, 2023

If anything, it is aggressively anti-fun, as if fun itself were just a tatty concept for the lumpen masses who crowd the family’s amusement parks.

From New York Times • Oct. 14, 2021

“A flash of life would move their lumpen bodies. Sad spectacle . . . . They were a cautionary tale.”

From Washington Post • May 12, 2020

Bad choice, as it turns out, because Manquillo blams a lumpen cross through the box and away from danger.

From The Guardian • Nov. 30, 2019

Then, they played "lumpen", "schafkopf", or even "tippen".

From My Life and My Efforts by Olesch, Gunther

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023