Definition of "bumbershoot"
bumbershoot
noun
plural bumbershoots
(originally and chiefly US, slang, humorous) An umbrella.
Quotations
Little drops of water / It is safe to bet / If you have no bumbershoot, / Make you doosid wet.
1891 March 21, “From the New Mother Goose”, in Brooklyn Life: A Journal of Society, Literature, Drama & the Clubs, volume III, number 55, Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.: Brooklyn Life Publishing Company, page 2, column 1
"It—it belongs in our family," said Button-Bright, beginning to eat and speaking between bites. "This umbrella has been in our family years, an' years, an' years. But it was tucked away up in our attic an' no one ever used it 'cause it wasn't pretty." / "Don't blame 'em much," remarked Cap'n Bill, gazing at it curiously; "it's a pretty old-lookin' bumbershoot."
1912, L[yman] Frank Baum, “The Magic Umbrella”, in Sky Island […], 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: The Copp, Clark Co., page 25
Two women pickets, Krkossa and Menefee, walked the picket line in front of the Respondent's studio for 1½ hours on 1 day carrying large old-fashioned men's umbrella (perhaps better described by the word "bumbershoots") thereby, according to the Respondent's theory, committing serious strike misconduct by interfering with pedestrian traffic in front of the Respondent's studio, by preventing others on the street or sidewalk from reading advertising material painted on the approximately 50-foot expanse of windows of the Respondent's building facing upon the street, and by reason of the hazard allegedly created of physical damage to passing pedestrians from the ribs of said bumbershoots.
1958 December 1, “Wichita Television Corporation Incorporated, d/b/a KARD-TV and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees & Moving Picture Machine Operators of the U.S. & Canada, Motion Picture Projectionists, Local No. 414, AFL-CIO ”, in Decisions and Orders of the National Labor Relations Board, volume 122, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office [for the National Labor Relations Board], published 1959, page 251
Me ol' bamboo, me ol' bamboo / You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo. / You can have me hat or me bumbershoot / But you'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo.
1968, Richard Morton Sherman, Robert Bernard Sherman (lyrics and music), “Me Ol’ Bamboo”, in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Original Cast Soundtrack, performed by Dick Van Dyke, New York, N.Y.: United Artists
On the march, it began to rain, I had an umbrella, but at 5:51 we copped out for our dinner-date, when just in sight of the sidestreet leading to the U. N., solid with motionless people under their parapluies and bumbershoots; that’s the way it shone back to us, international.
1972, Hortense Calisher, “Seizures of Love and Work”, in Herself, New York, N.Y.: Arbor House, page 274
Drizzles and mizzles. Recruit a bumbershoot.
1982, Robert B[ailey] Thomas, “April, the Fourth Month”, in Jud Hale [i.e., Judson D. Hale Sr.], editor, The (Old) Farmer’s Almanack, Calculated on a New and Improved Plan for the Year of Our Lord 1982, number 190, Dublin, N.H.: Rob Trowbridge, Yankee Publishing, page 49
She was terrified as a pair of footmen—dressed in full sixteenth-century livery, powdered wigs and all—cut through the chaos and ushered them inside the Waldorf, shielding them from the flying debris with bumbershoots.
2021 April, Renée Rosen, chapter 60, in The Social Graces, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, page 352