Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Bumper |
BumperAdjective1. Extraordinarily abundant; "a bumper crop". Noun1. A mechanical device consisting of bars at either end of vehicle absorb shock and prevent damage. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "bumper" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1598. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Bumper A full glass, generally connected with a "toast." Dr. Arn says a bumper is when the surface of the wine bumps up in the middle. (French, bomber, to render convex, to bulge or swell out.) "A fancied connection with bump, a swelling, has not only influenced the form of the word, but [has] added the notion of fulness."- Skeat: Etymological Dictionary. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Mining | A. A worker who pushes loaded cars or cans into a station for the hooker and removes the empties b. A device used to loosen the tools when drilling is carried on without jars c. A fender for lessening the jar caused by the collision of cars or other moving equipment d. See:catch e. A machine used for packing molding sand in a flask by repeated jarringor jolting. (references) |
Slang in 1811 | BUMPER. A full glass; in all likelihood from its convexity or bump at the top: some derive it from a full glass formerly drunk to the health of the pope--AU BON PERE. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Completeness | Impletion; saturation, saturity; high water; high tide, flood tide, spring tide; fill, load, bumper, bellyful; brimmer; sufficiency. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Bumper |
| English words defined with "bumper": apparently ♦ Brimmer, bumper guard, bumper jack ♦ Grace drink ♦ on the face of it, ostensibly ♦ seemingly. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "bumper": ASSEMBLER, DECK AND HULL, AUTOMOBILE-BUMPER STRAIGHTENER ♦ BRUSHER, bumper straightener ♦ deck and hull assembler ♦ EXTRUSION BENDER ♦ FACER ♦ QUILTING-MACHINE OPERATOR. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Bumper" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (buffer, bumper), Manx (bumper). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Do you always talk in bumper stickers (Postcards from the Edge; writing credit: Carrie Fisher) We've got a ferris wheel, tilt-a-whirl, bumper cars (Carpool; writing credit: Don Rhymer) Use the bumper! That's what it's for (GoldenEye; writing credit: Ian Fleming; Michael France) Now that's where I got you, wise guy, there's a black guy who works down at the building with me, he's got a bumper sticker on his car that says 'Black is Beautiful' so what's the matter with black beauties (All in the Family; writing credit: Johnny Speight; Norman Lear) It's a bumper. For a Jetta (Roswell; writing credit: Ronald D. Moore; Gretchen J. Berg) | |
Lyrics | Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper; (Convoy; performing artist: C.W. MCCALL) You could have a bumper car, bumping (Sledgehammer; performing artist: Peter Gabriel) | |
Movie/TV Titles | A Bumper Crop (1926) Bumper Stumpers (1987) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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High Tech |
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Bumper V-2 Launch. Credit: NASA. |  | Bumper No. 8, a captured German V-2 rocket, lifts off from Cape Canaveral. This rocket exploded in flight, but was the first to lift off from a launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Credit: NOAA in Space. |
 | A Consultation of Doctors on the case of Sr. Toby Bumper!! / Woodward del. Cruikshank sp. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Sack of feed on bumper of automobile. Brownwood, Texas. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Adding new storage space to wheat elevator at Dayton, Washington. They were getting ready for a bumper crop. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Elite Laundry truck. Overhead view of bent bumper. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | New clothes from the bumper harvest. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Prairie shepherds enjoy the bumper harvest. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Bumper harvest : Chinese painting. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Army men and civilians celebrate a bumper harvest. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Believe" by Christie Ortiz Commentary: "A bumper sticker that reads "Believe" which is the cities new slogan concerning the mayor & the police's efforts to clean up drugs in the inner city." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Bill Hicks | I'll tell you, too, that's starting to depress me about UFO's, about the fact that they cross galaxies, or wherever they come from to visit us, and always end up in places like Fife, Alabama. Maybe these are not super-intelligent beings, man. Maybe they're like hillbilly aliens. Some intergalactic Joad family or something. "Don't you all want to land in New York, or L.A.?" "Nah, we just had a long trip, we gonna kick back and whittle some." Oh, my God, they're idiots. "We're gonna enter our mothership in the tractor pull!" My God, we're being invaded by rednecks. My biggest fear. Last thing I want to see is a flying saucer up on blocks in front of some trailer, you know? Wouldn't that be depressing? Some bumper sticker on it - "They'll get my ray gun when they pry my cold, dead, eighteen-fingered hand off of it." |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Argentina recently has enjoyed a series of bumper crops, with the 1997/98 harvest as the largest and that of 1998/99 the second largest. (references) | |
Economic History | Sri Lanka | Production of rice, Sri Lanka's staple cereal, which recorded a bumper harvest in 1999, remained approximately at the same level. (references) |
New Zealand | With world demand picking up, farmers enjoying bumper harvests and the New Zealand dollar at low levels, the merchandise trade deficit is expected to narrow. (references) | |
Pakistan | Pakistan is forecasted to harvest another bumper cotton crop at 1.85 MMT in MY 2001/02, as farmers' shift from rice and sugar cane to cotton in an effort to conserve water. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Bumper" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 87.12% of the time. "Bumper" is used about 264 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 87.12% | 230 | 19,815 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 7.2% | 19 | 80,337 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 5.3% | 14 | 93,893 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.38% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 264 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "bumper": a bumper crop ♦ Bog bumper ♦ bumper car ♦ bumper christmas issue ♦ bumper crop ♦ bumper edition ♦ bumper guard ♦ bumper harvest ♦ bumper house ♦ bumper jack ♦ bumper sticker ♦ bumper to bumper ♦ bumper to bumper driving ♦ legform to bumper test ♦ lower bumper height ♦ lower bumper reference line ♦ upper bumper height. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "bumper": bumper-cars, bumper-sized, bumper-sticker, bumper-to-bumper. | |
Ending with "bumper": bumper-to-bumper, car-bumper, nose-to-bumper. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
bumper sticker | 2,221 | bumper car | 65 |
bumper | 697 | car bumper | 64 |
funny bumper sticker | 345 | atv bumper | 61 |
truck bumper | 294 | bumper hand ranch | 56 |
jeep bumper | 200 | off road bumper | 51 |
bumper pool table | 157 | front bumper | 50 |
custom bumper sticker | 132 | toyota bumper | 49 |
bumper to bumper | 122 | christian bumper sticker | 49 |
bumper pool | 110 | bumper sticker saying | 47 |
dock bumper | 89 | auto bumper | 47 |
winch bumper | 88 | political bumper sticker | 46 |
crib bumper | 87 | bumper pool rule | 45 |
bumper to bumper auto part | 82 | rear bumper | 44 |
arb bumper | 79 | chrome bumper | 43 |
bumper boat | 79 | bumper repair | 41 |
free bumper sticker | 79 | bumper boy | 40 |
bumper guard | 78 | bumper robinson | 39 |
bumper cover | 75 | custom truck bumper | 36 |
custom bumper | 67 | bumper pad | 36 |
rubber bumper | 66 | prerunner bumper | 35 |
bumper ford | 35 | ||
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "bumper"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | buffer (buffer). (various references) | |
Albanian | prapakolp, parakolp. (various references) | |
Arabic | كأس مترعة, ممتص الصدمات (shock absorber), نحس (bad luck, grim, illness, jinx, misfortune, ominous, sinister), غزير (abundant, copious, exuberant, flush, hard, massive, opulent, overmanned, plenteous, plenty, profluent, profuse, rampant, redundant, superabundant, torrential, voluminous), شىء ضخم (immensity, whale). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | амортисьор (absorber, chock, cushion), броня (aegis, armature, armor plate, armour, armour plate, corselet, cuirass, dashboard, fender, mail, plate armor, plate armour, ring-mail, shell, splash-board, test), пълна чаша. (various references) | |
Chinese | 防撞器. (various references) | |
Czech | nárazník (buffer, fender). (various references) | |
Danish | kofanger (buffer). (various references) | |
Dutch | stootkussen (buffer), bumper (buffer), buffer (buffer). (various references) | |
Esperanto | bufro (buffer). (various references) | |
Finnish | tipanohjain (gob deflector, gob interceptor, gob knocker), puskuri (buffer). (various references) | |
French | tampon (buffer), pare-chocs (buffer). (various references) | |
German | stoßstange (buffer-bar, bumper bar). (various references) | |
Greek | Oδηγός στάγματος (gob deflector, gob interceptor, gob knocker), προφυλακτήρασ (buffer, fender), προφυλακτήρας (fender, guard, machinery guarding, mudguard, wing), ποτήριο πλήρεσ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | פגוש (buffer front, fender). (various references) | |
Hungarian | lökhárító (buffer, fender), vasbika, itallal telt serleg, ütköző (buffer, check, coincident, driver, keeper, limit, stop dog). (various references) | |
Italian | rigetto goccia (gob deflector, gob interceptor, gob knocker), respingente (buffer), paraurti (fender), intercettatore della goccia (gob deflector, gob interceptor, gob knocker), eccezionale (cool, exception, exceptional, exeption, extraordinary, extreme, outstanding, remarkable, swell, terrific), abbondante (abundant, affluent, ample, copious, flush, free, full, generous, large, plenteous, plentiful, plenty, profuse, rife). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 車止め (buffer stop, bumping post), バンタム級 (Bambi, bamboo, band, band collar, bandana, band-man, bandoneon, band-score, bandwagon, bantam-weight, bump, bundle, bunt, bunt and run, vampire, vandalism, vin rose). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | バンパー , くるまどめ (buffer stop, bumping post). (various references) | |
Korean | 범퍼. (various references) | |
Manx | donkeyder (punner, thumper), bumper. (various references) | |
Norwegian | støtfanger (buffer, fender). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | umperbay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | brindar (donate, give, pledge, toast), pára-choque (buffer), pára‐choque (buffer), lotar, lotação completa, guia da gota (drop funnel, drop guide tube, gob deflector, gob funnel, gob interceptor, gob knocker, gob pot, steadier), deflector (baffle, baffle plate, blast deflector, canopy, deflector, deflector chute, delivery, fishtail, gob deflector, gob interceptor, gob knocker, impact plate, impact surface, louvre, outlet, splah plate, splash plate, spray plate, triangular end sill, turning vane), copo cheio (brimmer, glassful), amortecedor (absorber, cushion, muffler, pad, shock absorber). (various references) | |
Romanian | barã de protecţie, pahar plin, amortizor (buffer, damper, fender, shock). (various references) | |
Russian | буфер (buf, buffer, shock absorber), бампер. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | branik, odbojnik (reverberator). (various references) | |
Spanish | parachoques (buffer, fender). (various references) | |
Swedish | stötfångare (bumpers, fender). (various references) | |
Thai | เครื่องกันชน. (various references) | |
Turkish | bereketli şey, tampon (buffer, cushion, fender, packing, shock absorber, tampon, wad), mahmuz (rowel, spur), ağzına kadar dolu kadeh. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | келих (beaker, cap, chalice, cistern, goblet, rouse, wineglass), наповнювати келих по вінця, бампер. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "bumper": bumpered, bumpering, bumpers. (additional references) | |
| |
"Bumper" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Baumber, baumler, bimer, Bluemner, bumber, Bumer, bummber, bummper, bumpar, Bumpo, Bumppo, Obimpeh, Umopar. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "bumper" (pronounced bu"mper) |
| 4 | -u" m p er | dumper, jumper, lumper, mumper, Thumper. |
| 3 | -m p er | camper, damper, distemper, hamper, pamper, scamper, shrimper, simper, Stamper, swamper, tamper, temper, whimper. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-e-m-p-r-u" | |
-1 letter: brume, umber. | |
-2 letters: berm, bump, burp, mure, perm, pure, rube, rump. | |
-3 letters: bum, bur, emu, per, pub, pur, reb, rem, rep, rub, rue, rum, ump, urb. | |
-4 letters: be, em, er, me, mu, pe, re, um, up. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-e-m-p-r-u" | |
+1 letter: bumpers, bumpier, plumber, replumb. | |
+2 letters: bumpered, penumbra, plumbers, plumbery, replumbs. | |
+3 letters: bumpering, penumbrae, penumbral, penumbras, prenumber, replumbed, superbomb. | |
+4 letters: permutable, plumberies, prenumbers, presumable, presumably, procumbent, replumbing, subprimate, subproblem, superbombs, superjumbo. | |
+5 letters: perambulate, prenumbered, subprimates, subproblems, superbomber. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
