humpback

noun

1. A humped back (deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine).

   “[…] the Stone in my Fathers Body was so immense, that I’ve wonder’d it did not bunch up behind, and make him have a Hump-back, or at least overpoise him in walking, and drag him backward with its incredible weight.”

   “In the Male Line, there happened an unlucky Accident in the Reign of Richard the Third; the eldest Son of Philip, then Chief of the Family, being born with an Hump-back and very high Nose.”

   “Diana Vernon, the most beautiful creature I ever beheld, in love with him, the bandy-legged, bull-necked, limping scoundrel!—Richard the Third in all but his hump-back!”

   “[…] Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countess of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.”

   “He saw Dmitri half rise from his chair so that the shadow of his humpback shifted on the whitewashed wall.”

2. (broadly)A humped back (deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine).

   “[…] the cows stood about with gloomy eyes and hump-backs, surly and dangerous […]”

   “On the bare hills one begins to see unfamiliar silhouettes of animals against the sky. […] the peaked humpbacks of gnu on a ridge […]”

3. (figuratively)A humped back (deformity in humans caused by abnormal curvature of the upper spine).

   “1858, Royal B. Stratton, Captivity of the Oatman Girls, San Francisco: [for the author], Chapter 4, p. 134, On either side were the high, irregularly sloped mountains, with their foot hills robed in the same bright green as the valley, and with their bald hump-backs and sharp peaks, treeless, verdureless, and desolate […]”

   “The Goons kept appearing and disappearing in different places, always closer to them, as they worked their way over the humpback of the terrain.”

   “I could see clear out to the humpbacks of small islands along the great lake, where small banks of fog hung.”

4. (derogatory, offensive)A person with a humpback; a person who suffers from kyphosis.

   “[…] Tom’s more specific and kindly impressions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike toward him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue.”

   “[…] I stared up at the raw spots on his cheek and thought, there is no safety anywhere: a humpback, a cripple—they all have the trigger that sets love off.”

5. A humpback whale.
6. A humpback salmon.

verb

1. To hunt humpback whales.

   “The captain of the James Rodgers […] was an old hand at humpbacking […]”

   “[…] the Alice Knowles […] did her whaling in the south Atlantic, by turns humpbacking off the African coast and cruising around Tristan in season.”