Word.ws English Dictionary

tamp

/tæmp/

tamp verb: to plug up with clay, earth, dry sand, sod, or other material, as a hole bored in a rock.

Verb (1)

tamp (third-person singular simple present tamps, present participle tamping, simple past and past participle tamped)

  1. (blasting) To plug up with clay, earth, dry sand, sod, or other material, as a hole bored in a rock.
  2. To drive in or pack down by frequent gentle strokes
    • Tamp earth so as to make a smooth place.
    • Typically for the 'get-on-with-it' era, the railway and military worked like demons to restore the vital rail link. The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage was removed by breakdown trains, new rails and sleepers were rushed forward by willing hands, and US Army...2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43

Verb (2)

tamp (third-person singular simple present tamps, present participle tamping, simple past and past participle tamped)

  1. (transitive) To reduce the intensity of.
    • A single thought tamped her outrage: the chance that Meredith wasn't alone in her suspicions.2013, Kristina McMorris, The Pieces We Keep
    • Whatever doubts she struggled with, they hadn't tamped her hunger for him.2014, Christy Carlyle, Scandalous Wager

tamp meaning in Tamil

tamp in Tamil

அடைத்தல்

Examples of tamp in a sentence

  • The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage was removed by breakdown trains, new rails and sleepers were rushed forward by willing hands, and US Army bulldozers piled in.2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43:
  • A small bit of relief tamped her initial trepidation.2017, Ari Thatcher, Loving Her Alphas:
  • Lucy bit the inside of her cheek and tamped her anger down.2020, Jessie Gussman, An Amish Sanctuary:

All 15 example sentences with tamp

Forms of tamp

third-person singular presenttamps
present participletamping
past participletamped
pasttamped

Past tense of tamp: tamped

Origin of tamp

Probably a back-formation from tampin (misinterpreted as tamping), a variant of tampion.

Perhaps confusion with damp.

Words formed from tamp

Words that rhyme with tamp

8 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tamp

What does tamp mean?
Tamp means to plug up with clay, earth, dry sand, sod, or other material, as a hole bored in a rock.
What is tamp in Tamil?
Tamp in Tamil is அடைத்தல். See Tamp meaning in Tamil.
How do you use tamp in a sentence?
The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage was removed by breakdown trains, new rails and sleepers were rushed forward by willing hands, and US Army bulldozers piled in.
What part of speech is tamp?
Tamp is a verb.
How do you pronounce tamp?
Tamp is pronounced /tæmp/.
What is the past tense of tamp?
The past tense of tamp is tamped.

Words near tamp in the dictionary

  1. Tamontaka IV
  2. Tamontaka V
  3. Tamoso
  4. tamoxifen
  5. tamoxifens
  6. tamp
  7. tamp down
  8. Tampa
  9. Tampa Bay
  10. tampable
  11. Tampakis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tamp (page history and authors); tamp (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tamp.wav.

Cite this entry: “tamp.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tamp. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.