Tumpline

Alternative forms

• tump line

Origin

Tump is a shortening of mattump, metump, from a Penobscot word.

Full definition of tumpline

Noun

1. A strap used to carry objects tied to its ends by placing the broadened or cushioned middle of the strap over the head just above the forehead.
• 1918, Rex Ellingwood Beach, The Winds of Chance, ch. 2:The speaker slipped his arms into his pack-harness and adjusted the tumpline to his forehead preparatory to rising.