[Ads-l] 'gump-headed' (adj.) and 'gump-head' (noun and attrib.), not in OED

[James Eric Lawson]

The adjectival use of 'gump-headed' in the following quote is more than 
100 years earlier than the earliest quote given in OEDO for 'gump, n1' 
(1825). The sense of the adjective is "foolish, doltish"; the sense of 
the noun 'gump-head' is "a foolish person, a dolt" (see 'gump').

1722  *The New-England courant.* _New England courant_ (HathiTrust) (24) 
   Now you must know, that altho’ our Town is the Metropolis of the 
Island, yet we have such a poor careless, lazy, gump-headed (and being 
in a Passion, he had almost said knavish) Post-Master, as is not to be 
found in the whole Lunar World.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.82180127&view=1up&seq=159&size=175&q1=gump

1768  Isaac Backus *A Fish caught in his own net.* (Evans Early American 
Imprint Collection)   One sentence declared him to be a crafty deceiver; 
the next an honest gumphead.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N08465.0001.001

I collected many additional occurrences of 'gump-head(ed)' from the 
remainder of the 18th, through the 19th, and into the 20th century.

-- 
James Eric Lawson

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