English Meaning & Definitions
Present participle of bum: spending time idly, lounging, or wandering around without a specific purpose.
- “They spent the entire weekend bumming on the couch watching movies.”
- “He spent a year bumming around Europe after college.”
Informal: asking someone for something, such as money or a cigarette, without intending to pay for it.
- “Can I bum a ride to the grocery store with you?”
- “He was always bumming cigarettes from his coworkers.”
English Synonyms & Near Equivalents
Comprehensive Thesaurus Breakdown
Compare formal, informal, literary synonyms and register nuances for “bumming”.
Derived from the noun 'bum' (meaning a vagrant, loafer, or lazy person, or colloquially the buttocks), originating in American English in the mid-19th century, likely a shortening of 'bummer' (German slang 'Bummler', an idler or loafer, popularized during the American Civil War).
Think of a 'bum' lying around doing nothing to remember what 'bumming' about means.
Frequently Asked Questions About “bumming”
1. What is the meaning of “bumming” in English?
In English, bumming (verb) is defined as: “Present participle of bum: spending time idly, lounging, or wandering around without a specific purpose.”.
2. How do you use “bumming” in a sentence?
“They spent the entire weekend bumming on the couch watching movies.”
3. What are English synonyms of “bumming”?
4. What is the etymology and word origin of “bumming”?
Derived from the noun 'bum' (meaning a vagrant, loafer, or lazy person, or colloquially the buttocks), originating in American English in the mid-19th century, likely a shortening of 'bummer' (German slang 'Bummler', an idler or loafer, popularized during the American Civil War).
🇬🇧More English Words to English
View all English words →A measurement of time indicating an instantaneous occurrence or a state where no time has elapsed.
The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.
A specific duration of time equal to one hour and forty-six minutes and twelve seconds.
The cardinal number equal to one thousand million (1,000,000,000), expressed in scientific notation as 10^9.