tramp
/ˈtɹæmp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.21 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of walking with heavy steps.
noun
A long walk, possibly of more than one day, in a scenic or wilderness area.
Australian usage; New Zealand usage
noun
Shaking or juddering of a vehicle's driving axle under hard acceleration or braking, caused by the suspension not fully restraining it, and leading to reduction in tire traction.
Example Sentences
- "My dear sirs, did you actually imagine that one could not follow every clumsy move you made, with Joolby's low comedy tramp and the other two stealing in like a couple of hired assassins in a penny gaff melodrama?"
- "[S]he had expected to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven, burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp."
- "I can't believe you'd let yourself be seen with that tramp."
- "Claudia is such a tramp; making out with all those men when she has a boyfriend."
- "I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it possible. We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the mere fact of its being a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we could cut about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all manner of things, and really be a little at sea."
- "Then I think I conceive of other worlds and vast structures that pass us by, within a few miles, without the slightest desire to communicate, quite as tramp vessels pass many islands without particularizing one from another."
Etymology
From Middle English trampen (“to walk heavily”), from Middle Low German trampen (“to stamp”) (trampeln (“to walk with heavy steps”), see trample) or from Middle Dutch trampen (“to stamp”), from Proto-West Germanic *trampan (“to step”). Doublet of tremp. Cognate with Dutch trampen (“to stamp, kick, step”), dialectal German trampen (“to step, walk, tread”), whence commoner German trampeln (“to trample”). Probably related to trap.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: trampen, *trampan
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈtɹæmp/
- British English: /ˈtɹæmp/