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Pump   /pəmp/   Listen
noun
Pump  n.  A low shoe with a thin sole.



Pump  n.  An hydraulic machine, variously constructed, for raising or transferring fluids, consisting essentially of a moving piece or piston working in a hollow cylinder or other cavity, with valves properly placed for admitting or retaining the fluid as it is drawn or driven through them by the action of the piston. Note: for various kinds of pumps, see Air pump, Chain pump, and Force pump; also, under Lifting, Plunger, Rotary, etc.
Circulating pump (Steam Engine), a pump for driving the condensing water through the casing, or tubes, of a surface condenser.
Pump brake. See Pump handle, below.
Pump dale. See Dale.
Pump gear, the apparatus belonging to a pump.
Pump handle, the lever, worked by hand, by which motion is given to the bucket of a pump.
Pump hood, a semicylindrical appendage covering the upper wheel of a chain pump.
Pump rod, the rod to which the bucket of a pump is fastened, and which is attached to the brake or handle; the piston rod.
Pump room, a place or room at a mineral spring where the waters are drawn and drunk. (Eng.)
Pump spear. Same as Pump rod, above.
Pump stock, the stationary part, body, or barrel of a pump.
Pump well. (Naut.) See Well.



verb
Pump  v. t.  (past & past part. pumped; pres. part. pumping)  
1.
To raise with a pump, as water or other liquid.
2.
To draw water, or the like, from; to from water by means of a pump; as, they pumped the well dry; to pump a ship.
3.
Figuratively, to draw out or obtain, as secrets or money, by persistent questioning or plying; to question or ply persistently in order to elicit something, as information, money, etc. "But pump not me for politics."



Pump  v. i.  To work, or raise water, a pump.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pump" Quotes from Famous Books



... over the bowsprit pretty well beyond the reach of the waves, but there was no getting the Eliza off. It was no great loss, for she would have had to be broken up as firewood in another year or two. About six hours out of every twenty-four I was taking my turn at spells at the pump. ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... Flowerdelice, and the best bedfellow, too; for I may lie all night tryumphing from corner to corner while he goes to see the Fayries, but I for my part see nothing, but here [sic] a strange noyse sometimes. Well, I am glad we are haunted so with Fairies, for I cannot set a cleane pump down but I find a dollar in it in the morning. See, my Mistresse Lucilia, shee's never from him: I pray God he paints no pictures with her; but I hope my fellowe hireling will not be so sawcie. But we have such a wench a comming for you (Lordings) with ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... flexible as a piece of whalebone, is as unbending as a bar of iron; or, worse still, perhaps he adopts the dreary monotony of the sing-song tone: the two unvarying notes so suggestive of the up and down movements of a pump-handle. This "cuckoo" tone would blight the best ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... and seamen. The work commenced upon the higher parts of the foundation as the water left them, but it was now pretty generally reduced to a level. About twenty men could be conveniently employed at each pump, and it is quite astonishing in how short a time so great a body of water could be drawn off. The water in the foundation-pit at this time measured about two feet in depth, on an area of forty-two feet in diameter, and yet ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Dodge respired a moral atmosphere of this community-character, and gregarious propensity, that he had, in many things, lost all sense of his individuality; as much so, in fact, as if he breathed with a pair of county lungs, ate with a common mouth, drank from the town-pump, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper


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