| 词汇 | numps |
| 词源 | numps. The OED says this word of obscure origin is obsolete, but since it was used recently on a TV program (in which a character found numps in a dictionary for a word game he was playing) it cannot truly be caught in the cobwebs of antiquity. Numps, always used in a humorous way, means “a foolish, silly person.” It was first recorded in Francis Beaumont’s most suc- cessful play, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (ca. 1607), a come- dy that owes much to Cervantes’s Don Quixote. It is also spelled nump and numph. Beaumont was once thought to have written the play with his longtime collaborator, John Fletcher, but now it is known to be his alone. This is the same writing team of whom biographer John Aubrey wrote in Brief Lives: “There was a wonderful consimility of fancy. They lived together not far from the playhouse, had one wench between them, the same clothes and cloak, & C.” |
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