lamp

Plurallamps

Formslamps, lamping, lamped

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An item of furniture fitted with one or more sockets that hold electric light bulbs.

   A brass lamp stood on the side table beside the sofa.

   The hotel placed matching lamps on either side of the bed.

   Similarlight

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An electric light bulb or other device that produces light, heat, or another form of radiation.

   Engineers tested a lamp that emits ultraviolet radiation.

   The lamp in the incubator radiated steady warmth all night.

   Similarlight, bulb

   Note

   The broadest sense, and the one the word's long history stretches to cover. It came through Old French and Latin from Greek lampás, a torch or beacon, built on a root meaning "to shine." Modern use keeps the shining but drops the flame. A heat lamp or an ultraviolet lamp gives off radiation that may not be visible at all, and in everyday talk the word often means just the bulb.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A device holding oil that is burned through a wick to give light.

   The fisherman refilled the lamp with oil before rowing out at dusk.

   A faint glow from the lamp flickered as the wick burned low.

   Similarlantern

4. 4
   verbslangUKtransitive

   To hit, clout, or wallop someone forcefully.

   She lamped him across the head with her bag.

   One more word and the landlord threatened to lamp the troublemaker.

   Similarhit, whack, smack, wallop, clout

   Note

   British slang for landing a blow. You lamp someone, often in a named spot, as in Liam McIlvanney's The Heretic (2022): "lamping a twat in the face." Keep it for casual talk among people who share the register. Across the Atlantic the same spelling is the American slang for idling, so a British evening of lamping and an American one are very different nights out.

5. 5
   verbIrelandUKtransitive or intransitive

   To hunt at night using a bright lamp to dazzle the animal or to attract insects for capture.

   Local gamekeepers lamp foxes to protect the lambs in spring.

   They spent the night lamping hares on the open moor.

   Similarspotlight, jacklight

   Note

   A countryside practice with its own name in Britain and Ireland, where people lamp foxes, rabbits or hares, or simply go out lamping after dark. North American hunters call the same method jacklighting, and spotlight is the plainer alternative. The word covers insect collectors too, who use the light to draw insects in rather than to dazzle an animal.

6. 6
   verbslangUSintransitive

   To hang out and relax, doing nothing in particular.

   After finals, the roommates just lamped for a week.

   On Sundays they like to lamp in the park and watch the world go by.

   Similarrelax, chill, lounge, laze, loaf

   Note

   American slang for doing nothing much, best known in the phrase cold lamping, where cold intensifies it, as in the 1988 track "Cold Lampin' With Flavor." It is relaxed, social and unhurried, close to chilling or hanging out. Readers of British English should not confuse it with the British slang for hitting, because being lamped in that sense is anything but relaxing.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To convert a vase, urn, or similar object into a table lamp.

   The decorator lamped an antique Chinese vase for the client's study.

   With the right fittings you can lamp a heavy stone urn.

   Note

   A verb made from the furniture sense. You lamp a vase, an urn or a similar vessel, fitting it out so it works as a table lamp. The object of the verb is always the vessel being converted, never the light itself, and the past participle works naturally as an adjective, as in a lamped urn on a sideboard.

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