ramp

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   creep up -- used especially of plants

   The roses ramped over the wall

2. 2
   verb

   be rampant

   the lion is rampant in this heraldic depiction

3. 3
   verb

   furnish with a ramp

   The ramped auditorium

4. 4
   noun

   A way of hitting a boundary by facing the bat face front and pushing with force to launch the ball. 100% of it done against pace.

   He hit three ramps in a row to push his team near the opponents total.

5. 5
   noun

   A scale of values.

   The RGB model uses the color component of light sources in order to produce more realistic and pleasant results. Internal color representations are always based on a palette-based color ramp.

6. 6
   noun

   A deliberate swindle or fraud.

   We are surely not meant to think of the sense of “ramp” (from 1819) that means a deliberate swindle or fraud, such as announcing that you have done more tests than you actually have because a third were just posted out.

7. 7
   verb

   To behave violently; to rage.

   Mick raged and ramped at the barred door till his voice failed,

8. 8
   verb

   To swindle or rob violently.

   In English slang, to ramp was to swindle or rob.

Etymology

From French rampe, from Middle French rampe, deverbal of ramper, from Old French ramper (“to crawl, climb, scale up”), from Frankish *hrampōn (“to contract oneself, wrinkle, rumple, crumple, curve”), from Proto-Germanic *hrimpaną (“to shrivel, shrink”). Cognate with German Rampf (“retraction, curvature, shrinkage, spasm”). Doublet of romp. Akin also to Old English ġehrimpan (“to wrinkle, rimple, rumple”), Old High German rimpfan (German rümpfen (“to wrinkle up”)). Compare Danish rimpe (“to fold" (archaic), "to baste”), Icelandic rimpa. More at rimple.