tramp

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a heavy footfall

   the tramp of military boots

2. 2
   noun

   a disreputable vagrant

   a homeless tramp

3. 3
   verb

   cross on foot

   We had to tramp the creeks

4. 4
   verb

   travel on foot, especially on a walking expedition

   We went tramping about the state of Colorado

5. 5
   noun

   The act of walking with heavy steps.

   1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London 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?

6. 6
   noun

   A homeless person; a vagabond.

   [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.

7. 7
   noun

   A disreputable, promiscuous woman; a slut.

   I can't believe you'd let yourself be seen with that tramp.

8. 8
   noun

   Any ship which does not have a fixed schedule or published ports of call.

   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.

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.