1. [n]  (computer science) a copy of the contents of a computer storage device; sometimes used in debugging programs
2. [n]  a piece of land where waste materials are dumped
3. [n]  a coarse term for defecation; "he took a shit"
4. [v]  knock down with force; "He decked his opponent"
5. [v]  fall abruptly; "It plunged to the bottom of the well"
6. [v]  drop in a heap or mass
7. [v]  sever all ties with, usually unceremoniously or irresponsibly; "The company dumped him after many years of service"; "She dumped her boyfriend when she fell in love with a rich man"
8. [v]  as of refuse; "No dumping in these woods!"
9. [v]  sell at artificially low prices

1. \Dump\, n. [See {Dumpling}.]
   A thick, ill-shapen piece; a clumsy leaden counter used by
   boys in playing chuck farthing. [Eng.] --Smart.
   
   

2. \Dump\, n. [Cf. dial. Sw. dumpin melancholy, Dan. dump
   dull, low, D. dompig damp, G. dumpf damp, dull, gloomy, and
   E. damp, or rather perh. dump, v. t. Cf. {Damp}, or {Dump},
   v. t.]
   1. A dull, gloomy state of the mind; sadness; melancholy; low
      spirits; despondency; ill humor; -- now used only in the
      plural.
   
            March slowly on in solemn dump.       --Hudibras.
   
            Doleful dumps the mind oppress.       --Shak.
   
            I was musing in the midst of my dumps. --Bunyan.
   
   
   
   Note: The ludicrous associations now attached to this word
         did not originally belong to it. ``Holland's
         translation of Livy represents the Romans as being `in
         the dumps' after the battle of Cann[ae].'' --Trench.
   
   2. Absence of mind; revery. --Locke.
   
   3. A melancholy strain or tune in music; any tune. [Obs.]
      ``Tune a deploring dump.'' ``Play me some merry dump.''
      --Shak.
   
   4. An old kind of dance. [Obs.] --Nares.
   
   

3. \Dump\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Dumped}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Dumping}.] [OE. dumpen to throw down, fall down, cf. Icel.
   dumpa to thump, Dan. dumpe to fall suddenly, rush, dial. Sw.
   dimpa to fall down plump. Cf. {Dump} sadness.]
   1. To knock heavily; to stump. [Prov. Eng.] --Halliwell.
   
   2. To put or throw down with more or less of violence; hence,
      to unload from a cart by tilting it; as, to dump sand,
      coal, etc. [U.S.] --Bartlett.
   
   {Dumping car} or {cart}, a railway car, or a cart, the body
      of which can be tilted to empty the contents; -- called
      also {dump car}, or {dump cart}.
   
   

4. \Dump\, n.
   1. A car or boat for dumping refuse, etc.
   
   2. A ground or place for dumping ashes, refuse, etc.
   
   3. That which is dumped.
   
   4. (Mining) A pile of ore or rock.
   
   

1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a problem or the state of a system, especially one routed to the slowest available output device (compare core dump), and most especially one consisting of hexadecimal or octal runes describing the byte-by-byte state of memory, mass storage, or some file. In elder days, debugging was generally done by "groveling over" a dump (see grovel); increasing use of high-level languages and interactive debuggers has made such tedium uncommon, and the term "dump" now has a faintly archaic flavour.

2. A backup. This usage is typical only at large time-sharing installations.

unix manual page: dump(1).

[jargon file]