lumpen
Americanadjective
noun
adjective
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
Today’s most serious problem, which annihilates thoughtfulness about all others, is that a significant portion of the intelligentsia — the lumpen intelligentsia — cannot think.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 25, 2020
It’s no wonder I’ve ended up in a gym that’s mostly a lumpen mass of humanity, a gym that does not simply tolerate debacle and decrepitude but actively celebrates it.
From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2020
The film also introduces the Charlie Kaufman type: pasty and disheveled, with bad hair and lumpen bodies and a thin film of flopsweat on the face.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 29, 2019
Among German Socialists it is called the "lumpen proletariat," and both for the present and future is looked at with the greatest anxiety.
From Socialism As It Is A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement by William English Walling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
