Dump. (1) (Of obscure origin; corresponding in form and possibly connected with the word, are the Mid. Dutch domp, mist or haze, and the Ger. dumpf, dull or dazed), a state of wonder, perplexity or melancholy. The word thus occurs particularly in the plural, in such phrases as “doleful dumps.” It was also formerly used for a tune, especially one of a mournful kind, a dirge. (2) (Connected with “dumpy,” but appearing later than that word, and also of obscure origin), something short and thick, and hence used of many objects such as a lead counter or medal, of a coin formerly used in Australia, formed by punching a circular piece out of a Spanish dollar, and of a short thick bolt used in shipbuilding. (3) (Probably of Norse origin, cf. Nor. dumpa, and Dan. dumpe, meaning “to fall” suddenly, with a bump), to throw down in a heap, and hence particularly applied to the depositing of any large quantity of material, to the shooting of rubbish, or tilting a load from a cart. It is thus used of the method of disposal of the masses of gravel, &c., disintegrated by water in the hydraulic method of gold mining. A “dump” or “dumping-ground” is thus the place where such waste material is deposited. The use of the term “dumping” in the economics of international trade has come into prominence in the tariff reform controversy in the United Kingdom. It is sometimes used loosely of the importing of foreign goods at prices below those ruling in the importing country; but strictly the term is applied to the importing, at a price below the cost of production, of the surplus of manufactures of a foreign country over and above what has been disposed of in its home market. The ability to sell such a surplus in a foreign market below the cost of production depends on the prices of the home market being artificially sustained at a sufficiently high level by a monopoly or by a tariff or by bounties. An essential factor in the operation of “dumping” is the lessening of the whole cost of production by manufacture on a large scale.
Dump
