galumph
verb
Did you know?
Bump, thump, thud. There's no doubt about it—when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. Galumph first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: "He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." Carroll likely constructed the word by splicing gallop and triumphant (galumph did in its earliest uses convey a sense of exultant bounding). Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of galumph, because they began plying it in their own prose, and it has been clumping around our language ever since.
Examples of galumph in a Sentence
The Economist, 28 Dec. 2019
There used to be campus dogs galumphing around the quad, fat on a diet of student pizza and potato chips.
—Beth Thames , al, 30 Oct. 2019
There are also stretches of galumphing humor that go on too long.
—Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2018
North Carolina’s Luke Maye launched it in desperation and off-balance, with all of the grace of a grandpa galumphing through a three-legged race.
—Tim Sullivan, The Courier-Journal, 18 Feb. 2018
His margin may well have been provided by the FBI and U.S. intelligence establishment’s galumphing intervention in the Hillary Clinton email matter.
—Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 1 Sep. 2017
The problem for Besson's movie, besides the problems with the movie itself, is its late arrival, galumphing into theaters so many years after so many recyclers and copycats.
—Michael Phillips, chicagotribune.com, 20 July 2017
Cite this Entry
“Galumph.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/galumph. Accessed 5 May. 2025.
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galumph
verb
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