hump it

An archaic slang phrase meaning to be in a bad mood — angry, sullen, or just generally difficult to deal with. The 'hump' here is a figurative lump of irritability you're carrying around. Think of it as the Victorian version of 'woke up on the wrong side of the bed.' Rarely used today, but it has a satisfying bluntness to it.

A versatile slang term primarily used as crude shorthand for sexual intercourse — direct, unambiguous, and definitely not polite company material. Beyond the sexual sense, 'humping' also simply means hauling or carrying something heavy with effort, which gives it an interesting double life. In the military, soldiers 'hump' their gear across terrain; on the street, it means someone's working hard physically. Context makes all the difference when this word comes up.

(slang, archaic) To become angry or sullen.

Get one's hump up is an old-fashioned slang phrase meaning to become irritated, angry, or sullen — to get your back up, as a cat does when annoyed. The hump here evokes the raised spine of a bristling animal or the hunched posture of someone in a bad mood. Though archaic in most modern usage, the phrase still turns up in period fiction and occasionally in regional speech where older idioms survive longer than average.