Definition of "humpback"

humpback

/ˈhʌmpbæk/

noun
plural humpbacks
1. A humped back (deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine).
  Quotations
  […] the Stone in my Fathers Body was so immense, that I’ve wonder’d it did not bunch up behind, and make him have a Hump-back, or at least overpoise him in walking, and drag him backward with its incredible weight.
  1691, John Dunton, chapter 6, in A Voyage Round the World‎, London: Richard Newcome, page 122
  In the Male Line, there happened an unlucky Accident in the Reign of Richard the Third; the eldest Son of Philip, then Chief of the Family, being born with an Hump-back and very high Nose.
  1709 October 1, Richard Steele, “The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.”, in The Tatler‎, volume 2, number 75, London, published 1712, page 166
  Diana Vernon, the most beautiful creature I ever beheld, in love with him, the bandy-legged, bull-necked, limping scoundrel! Richard the Third in all but his hump-back!
  1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in Rob Roy. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown
  […] Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countess of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.
  1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 63, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848
  He saw Dmitri half rise from his chair so that the shadow of his humpback shifted on the whitewashed wall.
  1948, Philip Gibbs, chapter 5, in Behind the Curtain‎, Toronto: The Ryerson Press
  1. (by extension) A hump or protuberance on the shoulders or back of an animal.
    Quotations
    […] the cows stood about with gloomy eyes and hump-backs, surly and dangerous […]
    1902, Somerset Maugham, chapter 16, in Mrs Craddock‎, London: Heinemann, published 1955, page 157
    On the bare hills one begins to see unfamiliar silhouettes of animals against the sky. […] the peaked humpbacks of gnu on a ridge […]
    1969, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “Immersion in Life”, in Earth Shine‎, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, page 52
  2. (figurative) A rounded topographical feature, such as a mountain or hill.
    Quotations
    On either side were the high, irregularly sloped mountains, with their foot hills robed in the same bright green as the valley, and with their bald hump-backs and sharp peaks, treeless, verdureless, and desolate […]
    1858, Royal B. Stratton, Captivity of the Oatman Girls, San Francisco: [for the author], Chapter 4, p. 134
    The Goons kept appearing and disappearing in different places, always closer to them, as they worked their way over the humpback of the terrain.
    1968, Barry England, Figures in a Landscape‎, New York: Random House, Part 1, p. 78
    I could see clear out to the humpbacks of small islands along the great lake, where small banks of fog hung.
    2002, Michael Collins, chapter 38, in The Resurrectionists‎, Penguin, published 2006, page 286
2. (derogatory, now offensive) A person with a humpback; a person who suffers from kyphosis.
  Quotations
  […] Tom’s more specific and kindly impressions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike toward him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue.
  1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss‎, Book 2, Chapter 6
  […] I stared up at the raw spots on his cheek and thought, there is no safety anywhere: a humpback, a cripple—they all have the trigger that sets love off.
  1951, Graham Greene, The End of the Affair‎, Penguin, published 1975, Book 2, Chapter 7, p. 81
3. A humpback whale.
4. A humpback salmon.
verb
third-person singular simple present humpbacks, present participle humpbacking, simple past and past participle humpbacked
1. To hunt humpback whales.
  Quotations
  The captain of the James Rodgers […] was an old hand at humpbacking […]
  1895, Charles Nordhoff, chapter 10, in Whaling and Fishing‎, New York: Dodd, Mead, page 191
  […] the Alice Knowles […] did her whaling in the south Atlantic, by turns humpbacking off the African coast and cruising around Tristan in season.
  1953, Emma Mayhew Whiting, Henry Beetle Hough, chapter 16, in Whaling Wives‎, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 240

Definition of "humpback"

humpback

noun

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verb

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