dump, noun

Origin:
U.S. EnglishShow more Originally U.S. English (1865 in OED), from dump to deposit refuse. Cf. mine dump.
mine dump.
1919 R.Y. Stormberg With Love from Gwenno 11It (sc. Johannesburg) is quite the most volatile village in young Old Afriky. There are great white ice-bergs that float about the grey-green landscape: dumps they are called — the crushings of the white granite that contains the gold.
1920 R.H. Lindsey-Renton Diary (1979) 41We passed several of the dumps that are the curse of Johannesburg. These dumps consist of the dust to what the rocks and earth are reduced after having been crushed and washed etc. during the gold extracting process.
1922 Rand Daily Mail in J. Crwys-Williams S. Afr. Despatches (1989) 234One of the many fights centred around..the Robinson Dump...A body of police took up a position in the ditch beside the road, with others some little way up the dump itself.
1936 R.J.M. Goold-Adams S. Afr. To-Day & To-Morrow 159Johannesburg sank..into that curious dust-haze which is all its own, swept as it is from the dessicated sides of the dumps.
1936 A. Lezard Gold Blast 260These glistening dumps, these man-made mountains, present a permanent background to the town. They are silhouetted against every Johannesburg sky.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 176The higher price for gold, which indefinitely extended the life of the industry, removed the fear of..‘dumps’ that would slowly be worn away by the keen August winds.
1950 D. Reed Somewhere S. of Suez 46Around the city are great dumps, the size of Durham slag-heaps but of different colour.
1972 S. Afr. Panorama May 29Lush green vegetation is being established on dumps of virtually inert powdered quartz left by the gold mines of the Witwatersrand.
1988 G. Silber in Style Apr. 38The Klein Letaba Gold Mine, the richest gold producer in the northern Transvaal until a rock slide and rock bottom gold price forced it to seal its shafts in 1968..was just an old dump.
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19191988

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dumela, interjectionint.dumper, nounn.
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