lumpen
/ˈlʌmpən
/adjective
1(In Marxist contexts) uninterested in revolutionary advancement: the lumpen public is enveloped in a culture of dependency...
- We are not obliged to share the superficial view that lumpen social layers possess an inherently revolutionary character.
- More significantly, these agents have become crusaders for the issue and while mobilising support among the young, and largely lumpen groups, have spearheaded a hate campaign against the religious minorities.
- In some respects, his legend as an eccentric genius of economics only spread because he was the last of the treasurers whose plans were only analysed by the Opposition and the lumpen eco-commentariat of the press.
1.1Boorish and stupid: the growing ranks of lumpen, uninhibited, denim-clad youth...
- A later unscrupulous Pope decided to conflate the sundry Biblical Marys into the single persona of Mary Magdalene to avoid confusing the lumpen faithful of the times.
- At long last the lumpen England fan has woken from a deep historic stupor and realised that Scotland is off, and is never coming back.
- The lumpen scum whose abuse made him flip the finger last Monday night, at the end of the England game, know exactly what Becks is about.
2British Lumpy and misshapen; ugly and ponderous: her own body was lumpen and awkward...
- Usually we can make out no more than a lumpen shape in the gloom.
- Enter the UglyRipe, a lumpen, misshapen, odd duck of a tomato grown near Naples, Florida.
- Squat and lumpen, its form betrays its origins as clay shaped by hand.
plural noun (the lumpen)
The lumpenproletariat.And none ever sucked so much money out of the lumpen.
Origin
1940s: back-formation from lumpenproletariat; the sense 'misshapen, ponderous' is by association with lumpish.