1. A man or animal that jumps or leaps.
1611. Cotgr., Sautier, a leaper, iumper, skipper.
1812. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. 15. Almost as great a jumper as himself.
1886. Coventry & Watson, Steeple-chasing, iv. However much a horse may answer to the description of a natural jumper, he has to learn to be clever.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 4 May, 8/2. The … duties of the ‘’bus-jumper’—the ghostlike functionary who appears on the top of a ’bus and demands a sight of your ticket.
2. A name applied to the members of a body of Methodists that arose in Wales about the middle of the eighteenth century, who used to jump and dance as a part of religious worship; applied also to more recent sects following similar practices.
1774. in Sidney, Rowl. Hill (1834), 101. Nothing … made him so angry as the enthusiasm of the jumpers, whom he called the caricaturists of religion.
1802. Public Characters, 552. The Jumpers in Wales have started up as a sect within the last half century.
1852. M. W. Savage, R. Medlicott, III. xii. (D.). Jenny [was] a Welshwoman; her rude forefathers were goat-herds on week-days, and Jumpers on Sundays.
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond. The Walworth Jumpers.
3. An animal, esp. an insect (as a flea) or insect-larva, characterized by jumping: cf. HOPPER1 2.
1785. Gentl. Mag., LV. I. 265. A very remarkable little animal…. It is the Mus Jaculus or Sauteur; and in English may be called the Jumper.
1789. G. White, Selborne, xxxiv. 90. These eggs produce maggots called jumpers.
1834. McMurtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 391. The Jumpers or the Anisopoda.
4. One who jumps a claim. See JUMP v. 9 b.
1855. F. S. Marryat, Mountains & Molehills, 240. My claim being carefully measured … and found to be correct, the ‘jumper’ would be ordered to confine himself to his own territory.
1890. Gunter, Miss Nobody, vii. 86. Bob, the hero who saved the Baby Mine from the jumpers for us.
5. One who causes to jump, in quot., a flogger.
1842. Orderson, Creoleana, ix. 96. This … brute … ordered the unhappy Rachael into the hands of the ‘Jumper.’
6. Applied to various tools or contrivances having a jumping motion. a. Quarrying. A heavy drill worked either by hand or by means of a hammer, used in making blasting-holes in rock, etc. Also attrib. b. A spring or click controlling the star-wheel of a repeating clock. c. A form of plowshare for rough soil, or for soil filled with roots (U.S.). d. Telegraphy. A wire used to cut out an instrument or part of a circuit, or to close temporarily a gap in a circuit.
a. 1769. Smeaton, in Brand, Hist. Newcastle (1789), II. 586. Eye-bolts fixed in holes bored [in stones] with a jumper.
1828. Craven Dial., Jumper, a miner’s augur, used in making holes for the reception of gun-powder, for blasting or blowing up rocks.
1839–47. J. S. Macaulay, Field Fortif. (1851), 213. The miner holds the jumper in both hands, raises it, and lets it fall in the hole, turning it continually. Ibid. When the stone is of a very hard description, it is usual to pour water occasionally into the jumper-hole.
b. 1850. E. B. Denison, Clock & Watch Making, § 92. 125. The thing called the jumper … will … drive the ray still farther forward…. The jumper also acts as a click to keep the star wheel steady.
1884. F. J. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 251. The pin in moving the star wheel presses back the click or ‘jumper.’
7. U.S. A rough kind of sledge: see quot. 1893.
1823. J. F. Cooper, Pioneers, xxix. (1869), 126/1. They frequently make these jumpers to convey their game home.
1893. C. G. Leland, Mem., II. 81. A jumper,… the roughest form of a sledge, consisting of two saplings with the ends turned up, fastened by cross-pieces.
1898. R. A. Guild, in New Eng. Mag., June, 455/1. My pulse quickens as I recall the glorious times with our ‘jumper,’ and the hair-breadth escapes from posts and barberry bushes, in our swift descent upon the ice.
8. Naut. a. A preventer-rope made fast so as to prevent a yard, mast, etc., from jumping or springing up in rough weather. Also attrib. b. Jolly jumpers, sails above the moon-rakers (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 1867).
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. viii. 87. By a complication of purchases, jumpers, and shoves, we started the brig.
1882. Nares, Seamanship (ed. 6), 30. Topping lift for spritsail gaff and jumper. Ibid., 51. The jumper is rove through a clump block on the cutwater, and is set up with a purchase in the head.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 14 Feb., 10/2. These enable it [the compass] to be hoisted aloft on to the jumper stay, and it is in this way removed from all influences of the magnetism … caused by the ship’s iron.
Hence Jumper v.2 trans., to bore (a hole) with a jumper (sense 6 a). Jumperism, the principles of the Jumpers. Jumpery, practice or action of jumping; humorously applied to a dance.
1825. Blackw. Mag., XVII. 339. A hole … is jumpered in the rock.
1800. J. Whitaker, Lett., in Polwhele, Trad. & Recoll. (1826), II. 524. On Methodistical Jumpers or Jumperism.
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond., 64. Whether Jumperism is ceasing to merit its distinctive appellation, I cannot … say.
1882. Besant, All Sorts, vi. 53. Such dances as the bolero, the tarantellà, and other national jumperies.
