trample

From Middle English trample, from tramp +‎ -le (frequentative).

Attested in the original sense 'walk heavily' since early 14th century.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɹæmpəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æmpəl

trample (third-person singular simple present tramples, present participle trampling, simple past and past participle trampled)

1. (transitive) To crush something by walking on it.

   to trample grass or flowers

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

     Our conquering ſwords ſhal marſhal vs the way
     UUe vſe to martch vpon the ſlaughtered foe:
     Trampling their bowels with our horſes hoofes: […]

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 7:6:

     neither caſt ye your pearles before ſwine: leſt they trample them vnder their feete, […]

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […]   A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.

2. (by extension) To treat someone harshly.
3. (intransitive) 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 along which they trample […]

4. (by extension) To cause emotional injury as if by trampling.
   • 1782, William Cowper, “Conversation”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC:

     to trample on our Maker's laws

• (crush or stomp underfoot): calcate (obsolete)

trample (plural tramples)

1. A heavy stepping.
   • 2015, Lucy Corne, Josephine Quintero, Lonely Planet Canary Islands:

     Newly harvested grapes are poured into a vast vat for everyone to have a good trample upon […]

2. The sound of heavy footsteps.

• Lampert, Templar, templar

• Audio:

  (file)

trample

1. inflection of trampeln:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative
   3. first/third-person singular subjunctive I

From Middle High German *trampen, itself borrowed from Middle Low German trampen, from Old Saxon *trampan, from Proto-West Germanic *trampan (“to step”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtramplə/

trample

1. to tread
2. to trample

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary