trample

A heavy stepping.

Noun

  1. A heavy stepping.
    • Newly harvested grapes are poured into a vast vat for everyone to have a good trample upon […] - 2015, Lucy Corne, Josephine Quintero, Lonely Planet Canary Islands:
  2. The sound of heavy footsteps.

Origin

From Middle English tramplen, trampelen (“to walk heavily”), equivalent to tramp + -le. Cognate with Saterland Frisian trampelje (“to trample”), Dutch trampelen (“to trample”), German Low German trampeln (“to trample”), German trampeln (“to trample”).

Forms

tramples

Verb

  1. To crush something by walking on it.
    • to trample grass or flowers
    • Our conquering ſwords ſhal marſhal vs the way UUe vſe to martch vpon the ſlaughtered foe: Trampling their bowels with our horſes hoofes: […] - c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great....
    • neither caſt ye your pearles before ſwine: leſt they trample them vnder their feete, […] - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 7:6:
  2. To treat someone harshly.
  3. To walk heavily and destructively.
    • June 9, 1960, Charles Dickens, All the Year Round […] horses proud of the crimson and yellow shaving-brushes on their heads, and of the sharp tingling bells upon their harness that chime far along the glaring white road...
  4. To cause emotional injury as if by trampling.
    • to trample on our Maker's laws - 1782, William Cowper, “Conversation”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC:

Forms

tramples trampling trampled

Synonyms

tread calcate

Derived

betrample overtrample retrample trample out trampler tramplingly untrampled