Adjacent Words

Gumption definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

GUMP'TION, n. Care; skill; understanding. [Vulgar.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: sound practical judgment; "Common sense is not so common"; "he hasn't got the sense God gave little green apples"; "fortunately she had the good sense to run away" [syn: common sense, good sense, gumption, horse sense, sense, mother wit]
2: fortitude and determination; "he didn't have the guts to try it" [syn: backbone, grit, guts, moxie, sand, gumption]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1719 1. chiefly dialect common sense, horse sense 2. enterprise, initiative <lacked the gumption to try>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. colloq. 1 resourcefulness, initiative; enterprising spirit. 2 common sense. Etymology: 18th-c. Sc.: orig. unkn.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Gumption Gump"tion, n. [OE. gom, gome, attention; akin to AS. ge['o]mian, gyman, to regard, observe, gyme care, OS. gomean to heed, Goth. gaumjan to see, notice.] 1. Capacity; shrewdness; common sense. [Colloq.]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If someone has gumption, they are able to think what it would be sensible to do in a particular situation, and they do it. (INFORMAL) Surely anyone with marketing gumption should be able to sell good books at any time of year. 2. If someone has the gumption to do something, they are brave enough to do it. He suspected that deep down, she admired him for having the gumption to disagree with her. N-UNCOUNT: oft the N to-inf

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. (Colloq.) Shrewdness, sagacity, discernment, skill, cleverness, ability, penetration, capacity, power, common-sense. 2. Magilp.

Moby Thesaurus

adventuresomeness, adventurousness, aggression, aggressiveness, ambitiousness, astuteness, audacity, backbone, balls, boldness, bottle, brains, cleverness, common sense, courage, daring, drive, dynamism, energy, enterprise, enterprisingness, force, forcefulness, gameness, get-up-and-get, get-up-and-go, getup, go, go-ahead, go-getting, go-to-itiveness, good sense, grit, guts, horse sense, hustle, initiative, judgement, judgment, mettle, mother wit, moxie, nerve, nous, perspicaciousness, perspicacity, pluck, push, pushfulness, pushiness, pushingness, resourcefulness, sagaciousness, sagacity, shrewdness, spirit, spunk, stamina, up-and-comingness, venturesomeness, venturousness, vigor, wisdom