Dump means to drop, throw down, or get rid of something carelessly or all at once. When you dump your backpack on the floor after school, you're not gently setting it down. You just let it fall wherever it lands. Construction workers might dump a load of gravel from the back of a truck. A cook might dump a bag of flour into a mixing bowl.

The word captures a certain roughness or lack of care in how something is released. You don't dump something fragile you care about. You dump things you want to get rid of quickly or that don't need gentle handling.

A dump is also a place where garbage and unwanted items are taken, officially called a landfill. People sometimes call messy rooms dumps: “Your room looks like a dump!” The word here suggests disorder and worthlessness.

In technology, a data dump means copying large amounts of information all at once from one place to another. Programmers might dump the contents of a computer's memory to help find a problem.

The word can describe ending a relationship suddenly and coldly, like when someone gets dumped by a friend who stops talking to them without explanation. This use captures the careless, hurtful quality of the original meaning.