Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To fall or sink heavily; collapse.
  • intransitive verb To droop, as in sitting or standing; slouch.
  • intransitive verb To decline suddenly; fall off.
  • intransitive verb To perform poorly or inadequately.
  • intransitive verb To sink or settle, as into mud or slush.
  • intransitive verb To slide down or spread out thickly, as mud or fresh concrete.
  • noun The act or an instance of slumping.
  • noun A drooping or slouching posture.
  • noun A sudden falling off or decline, as in activity, prices, or business.
  • noun An extended period of poor performance, especially in a sport or competitive activity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To fall or sink suddenly when walking on a surface, as on ice or frozen ground, not strong enough to support one; walk with sinking feet; sink, as in snow or mud.
  • Hence, to fail or fall through ignominiously: often with through; as, the plan slumped through.
  • noun A boggy place; soft, swampy ground; a marsh; a swamp.
  • noun The noise made by anything falling into a hole or slump.
  • noun The act of slumping through weak ice or any frozen surface, or into melting snow or slush.
  • noun Hence, an ignominious coming to naught; complete failure; also, a sudden fall, as of prices: as, a slump in stock from 150 to 90.
  • noun A gross amount; a block; lump: as, to buy or take things in the slump: also used attributively: as, a slump sum.
  • To throw or bring into a mass; regard as a mass or as a whole; lump.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Scot. The gross amount; the mass; the lump.
  • transitive verb To lump; to throw into a mess.
  • intransitive verb To fall or sink suddenly through or in, when walking on a surface, as on thawing snow or ice, partly frozen ground, a bog, etc., not strong enough to bear the person.
  • intransitive verb To slide or slip on a declivity, so that the motion is perceptible; -- said of masses of earth or rock.
  • intransitive verb colloq. To undergo a slump, or sudden decline or falling off.
  • noun Prov. Eng. & Scot. A boggy place.
  • noun Scot. The noise made by anything falling into a hole, or into a soft, miry place.
  • noun colloq. A falling or declining, esp. suddenly and markedly; a falling off

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To collapse heavily or helplessly.
  • verb intransitive To decline or fall off in activity or performance.
  • verb intransitive To slouch or droop.
  • noun A heavy or helpless collapse; a slouching or drooping posture; a period of poor activity or performance, especially an extended period.
  • noun Scotland, UK, dialect A boggy place.
  • noun Scotland The noise made by anything falling into a hole, or into a soft, miry place.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb assume a drooping posture or carriage
  • noun a long-term economic state characterized by unemployment and low prices and low levels of trade and investment
  • verb go down in value
  • verb fall or sink heavily
  • verb fall heavily or suddenly; decline markedly
  • noun a noticeable deterioration in performance or quality

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Norwegian slumpa, to slump.]

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Examples

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  • One evening he was struggling with a pile of papers - administrative stuff, to do with the conference on Early Precambrian Stromatolite Morphology and Taxonomy - when he slumped into his seat, exhausted by the simple exertion.

    - Peter Reading, C, 1984

    August 2, 2008

  • “A spoon pie, including cooked or uncooked fruit topped with biscuit dough or piecrust, which can be baked or steamed, and can be made upside down”

    Ochef.com, Cobbler, Crisp, Crumble, Grunt, Slump—You Get the Picture

    April 6, 2010