Gumption, subs. (colloquial).—Cleverness; understanding; nous (q.v.). Also Rum Gumption.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. Gumption, or rum gumption, s.v., docility, comprehension, capacity.
1787. Grose, Prov. Glossary, s.v. ‘Gawm.’ Gawm, to understand; I dinna gawm ye, I don’t understand you. Hence, possibly, gawmtion, or gumption, understanding.
1834. Atlantic Club-book, I., 33. D’ye think I’m a fellow of no more gumption than that?
1843. Comic Almanack. Poor beasts, ’tis very clear, To any one possess’d of gumption, That if they’d not come over here, They’d have been carried off by home consumption.
1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. IV., ch. xii. Gumption—it means cleverness.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 25 June, p. 3, c. 2. But poor people—leastways, those that have got any gumption—know better than that.
1890. Notes and Queries, 7 S., x., 303. As familiar as the Greek word nous for what … is known … as gumption.
Gumptious, adj. (colloquial).—Shrewd; intelligent; vain.
1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. IV., ch. xii. Landlord. There’s gumption and gumptious! Gumption is knowing, but when I say that sum un is gumptious, I mean—though that’s more vulgar like—sum un who does not think small beer of hisself. You take me, sir?