: a gloomy state of mind : despondency
in the dumps

Examples of dumps in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Volatile markets have put investment banking in the dumps, but there is a silver lining for Wall Street banks. Charley Grant, WSJ, 13 Jan. 2023 The singer was quite generous with the photo dumps, sharing more images of her and Peltz's midnight look in matching silver Maison Valentino cutout minidresses. Aimée Lutkin, ELLE, 2 Jan. 2023 When fires threatened the city last month, the aid group rented helicopters for water dumps. Lesley Wroughton, Washington Post, 19 Dec. 2022 And the breakthrough has opportunities far beyond waste dumps – there are millions more tons still underground that haven’t been viable to mine. Thomas Biesheuvel, Fortune, 27 Nov. 2022 From there, some of the storm debris will be taken to municipal dumps and some will be trucked across the state to privately run landfills. Anna Phillips, BostonGlobe.com, 26 Nov. 2022 For decades, Valparaíso has expanded with no regulation or urban planning, leading to improvised, chaotic collections of wooden houses along high roads and gorges, which are often used as informal waste dumps. Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 15 Apr. 2014 When Santa's sleigh crash-lands in a junkyard on Christmas Eve, an unfortunate occurrence that has the town down in the dumps in the animated film A Trash Truck Christmas. Skyler Caruso, Peoplemag, 23 Nov. 2022 The theory was that a chicken in a generally positive mood would be more likely to assume that the bowl contained something good, like food, and would stride toward it more quickly than a down-in-the-dumps chicken would. Emily Anthes Lauren Petracca, New York Times, 22 Nov. 2022

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dumps.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

probably from Dutch domp haze, from Middle Dutch damp — more at damp

First Known Use

1529, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of dumps was in 1529

Dictionary Entries Near dumps

Cite this Entry

“Dumps.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dumps. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

dumps

noun plural
: a dull gloomy state of mind : low spirits
in the dumps

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