[f. JUMP v.: cf. F. saut and sauter.]
1. An act of jumping; a spring from the ground or other base; a leap, a bound: properly said of men or animals springing with the muscular action of the limbs. Sometimes with adv., as jump-up.
1552. Huloet, Iumpe, subsultus. Iumpe by Iumpe, subsultim.
1589. R. Robinson, Gold. Mirr., etc. (Chetham Soc.), 59. Began with speed, for to plucke up my feete, Because the place did put me to my jumps.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, xi. The orbs celestiall Will daunce Kemps jigge: they’le revel with neate iumps.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 265. It [the hare] sildome looketh forward, because it goeth by iumpes.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), III. 205. [The cat] then seized it with a jump.
1851. Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunt., ix. 69. We will be back in a squirrel’s jump.
1890. Spectator, 15 March, 381/1. The god comes out of the car with a jump-up like a Jack-in-the-box.
b. esp. in reference to the distance cleared (long or broad jump), or height jumped (high jump), as an athletic performance; also, a place to be jumped across, an obstacle to be cleared by jumping, in hurdle-racing, hunting, etc.
1858. R. S. Surtees, Ask Mamma, xl. Hoping he was … able to sit at the jumps.
1870. Blaine, Encycl. Rur. Sports (ed. 3), § 1648. This leap … was found to be twenty-four feet clear, which … was, it must be allowed, no small jump.
1872. Graphic, 6 April, 314/1. (Oxf. & Cambr. Athletic Sports) After … the Broad Jump, and the spin for a quarter of a mile … came the hammer-throwing.
1881. [see ATHLETE 2].
1889. R. S. S. Baden-Powell, Pigsticking, 123. To educate them [horses]…. It is well worth while to keep up a small line of natural jumps somewhere in the neighbourhood.
1895. Outing (U.S.), XXVI. 455/1. Oxford won all the runs, the high hurdle, and tied in the high jump with Yale, losing only the weights and broad jump.
2. A sudden involuntary movement caused by a shock or excitement; a start. In pl. nervous starts; an affection characterized by such, spec. (a) chorea, (b) delirium tremens (slang).
1879. Payn, High Spirits, Capt. Cole’s Passenger, II. 204. I thought he had been drinking, and in fact was on the verge of ‘the jumps.’
1881. W. E. Norris, Matrimony, I. i. 17. Pilkington saw it … and … it gave him the jumps to that extent that he couldn’t eat a thing afterwards.
1886. ‘Maxwell Gray,’ Silence Dean Maitland, I. x. 272. It gives me the most fearful jumps to think of.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Miner’s Right, xxviii. 255–6. ‘I’m afraid he’s got the jumps coming on.’… ‘Delirium tremens,’ I returned ‘very likely, indeed.’
1890. Annie Edwardes, Pearl-powder, vii. At Philippa’s sudden apostrophe she gave a jump.
3. Of things: A movement in which a thing is suddenly and abruptly thrown up or forward. spec. in Gunnery: The vertical movement of the muzzle of a gun at the moment of discharge; the angle that measures this.
1611. Cotgr., Cahot, the iumpe, hop, or iog of a coach, &c., in a rugged, or vneuen, way.
1879. Man. Artillery Exer., I. 3. When a gun is fired, the whole system has a tendency to revolve in a vertical plane round the point of the trail or rear trucks; this lifting in front gives rise to the ‘jump.’
1897. Text-Bk. Gunnery, Jump, is the angle between the line of departure and the axis of the piece before firing.
4. fig. A sudden abrupt rise in position, amount, price, value, or the like; an abrupt change of level either upward or downward; an abrupt rise of level in building; a fault in stratification.
1657. North’s Plutarch, Add. Lives (1676), 8. He did much admire, men should quarrel and kill themselves for the honour of a jump or precedency, or some such toy.
1842. Francis, Dict. Arts, Jump, one of the numerous appellations given by miners to a fault or dislocation of different mineral strata.
1842–76. Gwilt, Archit. (ed. 7), Gloss., Jump, an abrupt rise in a level course of brickwork or masonry to accommodate the work to the inequality of the ground.
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, Jump (Jump-up, Jump-down), an up-throw or a down-throw, fault.
1883. Stubbs’ Mercantile Circular, 8 Nov., 982/2. The jump in the import of raw cotton, which has more than quadrupled itself in two years.
1887. Spectator, 3 Sept., 1173. The little barometrical jumps which have recently been observed.
1891. Daily News, 12 Nov., 2/7. Canary seed … exhibits a sudden upward jump of several shillings. Ibid. (1896), 18 June, 3/1. Negatived by 293 votes against 118, a jump up of 100 in the majority.
5. fig. A sudden and abrupt transition from one thing or point to another, with omission of intermediate points; an interval, gap, chasm, involving such sudden transition, e.g., in argument.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 36. 587. By this means, there will not be so vast a Chasm and Hiatus … or so Great a Leap and Jump in the Creation.
1781. Cowper, Conversation, 154. Their nimble nonsense … gains remote conclusions at a jump.
1871. Blackie, Four Phases, I. 62. Every one sees that there is a jump in the logic here.
† 6. fig. The decisive moment of plunging into action of doubtful issue; dangerous critical moment, critical point, crisis. (L. discrīmen.) Obs.
[The notion is evidently that of making a jump or taking a plunge into the unknown or untried.]
1598. Grenewey, Tacitus, Ann., II. iii. (1622), 36. Being therefore at a iumpe to hazard all [igitur propinquo summæ rei discrimine], thinking it conuenient to sound the souldiers minde.
1607. Drewill’s Arraignm., in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), III. 62. Being come to the very iumpe of giuing iudgement.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., I. 212. Seeing … that he now stood upon the iumpe of his Salvation or Condemnation.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 215. This testimony of Clemens … must needs put our Imputers upon this jump, that if Sibyls Oracles were counterfaited by Christians, it was done in the Apostles times.
† b. Venture, hazard, risk. Obs.
1600. Holland, Livy, VI. xxxviii. 243. Presently … they put it to the verie jumpe and finall triall what should become of those lawes. Ibid. (1601), Pliny, II. 219. It [hellebore] putteth the Patient to a jumpe or great hazzard.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., III. viii. 6. Our fortune lyes Vpon this iumpe.
7. Phrases. † At the first jump, at the very start (of proceedings). From the jump, from the start or commencement. On the jump, on the move. colloq.
1577. Hanmer, Anc. Eccl. Hist. (1619), 158. Procopius, stepping forth at the first iumpe [εὑθὺς ἀπὸ πρώτης εἰσόδου] before the tribunall seate of the presidents.
1848. New York Tribune, 11 Nov. (Bartlett). A whole string of Democrats, all of whom had been going the whole hog for Cass from the jump.
1888. Daily Inter Ocean, 3 Feb., 3/1 (Farmer). He can depend on a big crowd and fair play from the jump.
1900. Daily News, 4 May, 3/2. Cut my Lord Roberts up for not keeping the foe on the jump.
