courage bump n [ courage n + bump n 1] chiefly Sth Cf fuck bump n, jack bump n, jerk bump n, love bump n 1, nature bump n, pussy bump n
A pimple; usu pl: acne or a similar skin condition.
1770 in 1983 Windley Runaway Slave 1.82 VA, Run away from the subscriber, . . a Virginia born Negro man named Will, near 6 feet high, about 35 years old, well made, and his face often full of courage bumps. 1809 Tickler (Philadelphia PA) [29 Mar 3]/1, Next Lawyer L*** demands some lines, / Whose face with brass divinely shines, / Whose valour some presume to doubt, / Though courage bumps adorn his snout, / Because he loves to suck-a-titty, / And play with breasts of women pretty. 1875 GA Weekly Telegraph & GA Jrl. (Macon) 5 Jan [4]/6, The doors of the White House were opened by a white porter, whose face was profusely decorated with “courage bumps” or “rum blossoms.” 1898 LA State Med. Soc. Trans. 19.259, First noticed growth [on his ear] about two years ago, which has increased gradually. Could recall no injury, but thought, at first, it was what he termed “a courage bump.” 1910 Fayetteville Observer (NC) [6 Jan 4]/2, The boy is between a ginger and a black color, and his face is very bumpy, with courage bumps, just about 13 years old, and about 5 feet high. 1921 Grant Co. Tribune (Hyannis NE) [22 Dec 4]/4 MD, The [matrimonial] epidemic, as we have diagnosed it is fierce. One otherwise beautiful little blonde was broke out all over with what was familiary [sic] known in our day as “courage bumps” and [an] old bachelor was suffering imaginary delusions from the efects of an overdose of “man-atone.” 1952 Ellison Invisible Man 253 [Black], There was a disturbing vagueness about what I saw, a disturbing unformed quality, as when you see yourself in a photo exposed during adolescence: the expression empty, the grin without character, the ears too large, the pimples, “courage bumps,” too many and too well-defined. 1966–67 DARE (Qu. X59, . . Small infected pimples that form, usually on the face) Infs GA3, 13, SC40, Courage bumps. 1985 TN Folk Lore Soc. Bulletin 52.11, Adolescent acne is referred to as “pimples,” “hickeys,” . . and “courage bumps.”