whump

Etymology

Imitative.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ʍʌmp/, /wʌmp/
Rhymes: -ʌmp

Noun

whump (countable and uncountable, plural whumps)

(informal, countable) A soft thumping sound.
(fandom slang, uncountable) A genre of fan fiction in which a character endures injury, torture, or other forms of physical and mental suffering.
- 2014, Joseph Brennan, “'Fandom is full of pearl clutching old ladies': Nonnies in the online slash closet”, in International Journal of Cultural Studies, volume 17, number 4, page 365:
  By embracing dark genres of slash such as ‘squick’ and ‘whump’, the art of mythagowood purposely skirts parameters of taste and acceptability.
- 2018, Naja Later, “Quality Television (TV) Eats Itself: The TV-Auteur and the Promoted Fanboy”, in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, volume 35, number 6, page 540:
  Narrative devices shared by Hannibal and fanfiction include “whump,” the vivid abuse and torture of a character, a popular convention across certain types of fanfiction: Graham is knocked out, shot, stabbed, gutted, sawed open, and subjected to induced seizures.
- 2019 April, Adrienne E. Raw, “Normalizing Disability: Tagging and Disability Identity Construction through Marvel Cinematic Universe Fanfiction”, in Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, volume 8, number 2, pages 202–203:
  However, further research with a larger sample and encompassing more fandoms would be necessary to confirm this potential explanation of this trend and to explore the impact of other factors, such as assigning characters a physical and/or mental disability or illness for the purpose of whump or hurt/comfort stories.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:whump.

Hyponyms

(fandom slang): hurt/comfort

Verb

whump (third-person singular simple present whumps, present participle whumping, simple past and past participle whumped)

(informal, transitive) To strike something with a whump.
To make a soft thumping sound.
- 1963, Eugene Keenan Garber, M'Ginnis, page 261:
  […] the sound of sheets drying on a line a windy day: whumping, whushing.

Anagrams

wumph