Sc. and north. dial. [Origin unascertained.] A soft stupid fellow; a simpleton, blockhead. Also, a surly or sullen man.
1719. Ramsay, 2nd Answ. to Hamilton, vii. Thrawn-gabbit sumphs that snarl At our frank lines.
1789. Shirrefs, Poems (1790), 289. When noble souls ly in the dirt, While sumphs jump up so high.
1818. Scott, Br. Lamm., xii. It’s doing him an honour him or his never deserved at our hand, the ungracious sumph.
1831. J. Wilson, Noctes Ambr., Nov., Wks. 1856, III. 282. A Sumph … is a chiel to whom Natur has denied ony considerable share o’ understaunin, without ha’in chose to mak him just a’thegither an indisputable idiot.
1871. Black, Daughter of Heth (1872), 73. ‘Dinna be a sumph!’ said the Whaup.
Hence Sumphish a., stupid; also, sullen; whence Sumphishly adv., Sumphishness.
1728. Ramsay, General Mistake, 65. The sumphish mob.
1802. J. Struthers, Poor Man’s Sabbath, xc., note Wks. 1850, I. 53. These audacious,… sumphishly, selfish assumptions.
1846. C. Brontë, in Mrs. Gaskell, Life (1857), II. 16. Indiscriminating irony and fault-finding are just sumphishness.
1858–61. Ramsay, Remin., vi. (1870), 182. A sumphish weatherbeaten man.
