gazump

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡəˈzʌmp/
• (General American) enPR: gə-zŭmpʹ, IPA^(key): /ɡəˈzʌmp/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmp
• Hyphenation: ga‧zump

Etymology 1

Possibly from Yiddish גזלן (gazlen, “thief, bandit”).

Alternative forms

• gazoomph
• gazumph

Verb

gazump (third-person singular simple present gazumps, present participle gazumping, simple past and past participle gazumped)

1. (British) To swindle; to extort.
2. (British, Australia, real estate) To raise the selling price of something (especially property) after previously agreeing to a lower one.
   • 1980, The Estates Gazette, volume 256, part 2, page 902:

     If one believes that morality plays no part in such a transaction, and that the law is all that prevails, then I believe society is the poorer. Clearly no surveyor refuses to act for a client who gazumps — but while the practice is legal it can hardly be described as moral, and the position of the surveyor is far from clear.

   • 1981, Geoffrey Chevalier Cheshire, M. P. Furmston, Cecil Herbert Stuart Fifoot, Cheshire and Fifoot's Law Of Contract, page 35:

     During the early 1970s however in a period of rapidly increasing house prices it came to appear unfavourable to buyers since it allowed the seller to ‘gazump’, that is to refuse to sign the formal contract unless the buyer would agree to an increased price.

3. (British, Australia, real estate) To buy a property by bidding more than the price of an existing, accepted offer.
   • 2017 March 15, Sebastian Shakespeare, “Cherie Blair is gazumped on £3m house by Elon Musk's ex-wife”, in The Daily Mail‎^[1]:

     I can disclose that Mrs Blair had an offer of £2,765,000 accepted on a five-storey Georgian house in a fashionable area of central London, which she planned to give to daughter Kathryn.¶ However, actress Talulah Riley, 31, who played spoiled Annabelle Fritton in two St Trinian’s films, gazumped her with an offer of £3 million — a staggering £235,000 more than the asking price.

   • 2017 October 22, Nana Prempeh, quoting Nick Smith, “Gazumping: Your views”, in BBC News‎^[2]:

     We are first-time buyers going through the process of buying our first home in London. We had previously tried three years ago and were gazumped twice. We lost nearly £4,000 to surveyors and solicitors with no property to show for it at the end.

   • 2020 March 4, Marc Mayo, “Dortmund leading race for Jude Bellingham, 16, ahead of Man Utd with Birmingham wonderkid to be their record transfer”, in The Sun‎^[3]:

     Birmingham's teen sensation Jude Bellingham is nearing a move to Borussia Dortmund, according to reports in Germany.¶ Manchester United and Chelsea have been strongly linked with the 16-year-old but are set to be gazumped by the Bundesliga giants.

4. (British, Australia) To trump or preempt; to reap the benefit underhandedly from a situation that someone else has worked to create.
   • 1995, Hugh Templeton, All Honourable Men: Inside the Muldoon Cabinet, 1975-1984‎^[4], page 107:

     The tactic was to gazump the Labour Party and the FOL by a major restructuring of the tax system.

   • 2004, John McLeod, Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis‎^[5], page 72:

     Just as Whymper effectively gazumps Mr Stone in taking credit for the Knights Companion scheme for ambitious ends, so too does this dangerous, multicultural, overcrowded version of London seem to be displacing the colonial fantasy of England by the novel's conclusion.

   • 2010, Fionn Davenport, Ireland, ebook edition, Lonely Planet, page 43:

     Fianna Fáil lost the 1948 general election to Fine Gael (as Cumann na Gael were now known), who proceeded to gazump the Republican credentials by leaving the British Commonwealth and officially declaring the Free State a republic.

Noun

gazump (plural gazumps)

1. (British, Australia, real estate) The act of gazumping.

See also

• gazunder

Etymology 2

Noun

gazump (plural gazumps)

1. (US, slang, dated) An automobile.
   • 1884, Theta Delta Chi, “The Shield: official publication of the Theta Delta Chi Fraternity”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎^[6], volume 27, page 335:

     "Phoney" Thorpe, '06, and "Shorty" Winchester, '01, have been driving their "90 HP Gazumps" through the wilds of New Jersey, but otherwise keeping on the job.

   • 1915, Francis Joseph Reynolds, Master tales of mystery‎^[7], volume 1, page 373:

     Go out and hire the finest gazump that ever burned benzine.

2. A politician who takes bribes.
   • 1918, The National provisioner, volume 59, page 36:

     This year's crop of "nite bloomin' wood-be mayors" includes such famous gazumps as Mac Hoyne, Tom Carey, Barney Mullaney, possibly Carter H., Wilhelm Thompson, and the devil knows who else.

   • 1920, Carl Sandburg, “Cahoots”, in Smoke and Steel, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC, page 45:

     Go fifty-fifty. / If they nail you call in a mouthpiece. / Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it. / Feed 'em. …