Humming, adj. (old). Strong—applied to drink; brisk—applied to trade; hard—applied to blows. Humming October = the specially strong brew from the new season’s hops; stingo (q.v.).
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Humming Liquor, Double Ale, Stout, Pharoah.
1701. Farquhar, Sir Harry Wildair, iv., 2. The wine was humming strong.
1736. Fielding, Don Quixote, iii., 4. Landlord, how fares it? You seem to drive a humming trade here.
1821. Egan, Tom and Jerry, ch. vii. Let us fortify our stomachs with a slice or two of hung beef, and a horn or so of humming stingo.
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxiii. A humming double pot of ale. [[381]]
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends. ‘The Wedding Day.’ A mighty magnificent tub Of what men, in our hemisphere, term ‘Humming Bub,’ But which gods—who, it seems, use a different lingo, From mortals, are wont to denominate ‘Stingo.’
1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. III., ch. vii. Wegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the back of his devoted head.
Hump, verb. (common).—1. To spoil; to botch; to do for.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, vol. i., p. 252. To hump in street parlance, is equivalent to ‘botch,’ in more genteel colloquialism.