stamp

STAMP/stæmp/

16 meanings of stamp

1
nouncountable
A small piece of paper with a design and a face value, attached to mail or documents to prepay postage, taxes, or license fees.
The collector paid thousands for a rare stamp from the 1850s.
Each parcel needs the correct stamps to cover the postage.
2
nouncountable
A tool or device used to press a design, mark, or symbol onto a surface.
The clerk reached for the date stamp to process each application.
Old wax seals were made with metal stamps bearing family crests.
Similardie, seal
3
nouncountable
A mark, imprint, or indentation left on a surface by pressing or stamping.
Customs left a faint stamp in the corner of the passport page.
Each brick bore the maker's stamp pressed into the clay.
Similarmark, imprint, impression, seal, print
4
verbintransitive
To step down quickly and heavily with the foot, once or repeatedly.
Protesters stamped and shouted outside the building.
He likes to stamp on the icy puddles until they crack.
Similarstomp, tramp, tread, trample
5
verbtransitive
To give something an official mark, usually by pressing or imprinting a design or symbol onto it.
The notary stamped the contract to make it official.
Inspectors stamp approved goods with a small blue seal.
Similarseal, certify, endorse, validate, mark
6
verbtransitive
To mark something by pressing down on it quickly and forcefully.
Workers stamp the company logo onto each metal part.
The machine stamped serial numbers into the steel plates.
Similarimprint, emboss, impress, print, punch
Note
Two constructions describe the same act. A machine can stamp the cover with a design, which makes the surface the object. It can also stamp the design into the cover, which makes the mark the object, with into or onto showing where it lands. Both are standard; the choice depends on whether the sentence is about the surface or the mark.
7
verbtransitive
To bring the foot down hard on something, striking or pressing it with the sole.
She stamped the empty can flat on the sidewalk.
Villagers stamp the grapes to make wine.
Similartread, crush, trample, stomp, flatten
Note
Here the object is what the foot hits, not the foot itself. Dryden's hero "stamps the ground," and in Shakespeare's Henry VI a cardinal's hat is stamped underfoot. That is the line between this sense and stamping one's feet, where the feet are the object. A result can follow the object, as when someone stamps an empty can flat.
8
nouncountable
A single forceful bringing-down of the foot, paw, or hoof onto the ground.
A single stamp of the rabbit's foot warned the others of danger.
The dancer ended the routine with a loud stamp.
Similarstomp, thump
Note
The foot-on-the-ground sense sits closest to the word's roots: Middle English stampen meant "to pound, crush," and its Germanic ancestor meant "to trample, beat." As a noun it counts, so a horse gives two quick stamps. It also pairs naturally with whatever is doing the stamping. Margery Williams's rabbits vanish "with a stamp of feet and a flash of white tails."
9
verbfigurativelytransitive
To impress or mark something strongly, often in a lasting or figurative way.
The war stamped its mark on every family in town.
Strong mentors stamp their values on the people they teach.
Similarimprint, impress, brand, etch, engrave
Note
Here nothing physical is pressed, but the grammar of marking by pressure survives. A BBC rugby report of 2011 has England's three-quarters beginning "to stamp their authority on the game," and Locke writes of characters stamped "on our minds." In both, the preposition is on, and the thing stamped is abstract: authority, character, values.
10
verbtransitive
To attach one or more postage stamps to a letter or parcel.
The clerk stamped hundreds of envelopes before noon.
You must stamp each parcel with enough postage.
Similarfrank
Note
A verb built on the postage stamp itself, the prepaid paper square, rather than on any stamping motion. It can be confused with the official-marking sense: a clerk who stamps an envelope might be adding postage or inking a mark onto it. Phrasing settles it. Stamp it with enough postage, or forgot to stamp this letter, points to postage, while stamp it received points to the mark.

11
verbtransitive
To bring the foot or feet down quickly and heavily, whether once or many times.
He stamped his feet in frustration at the delay.
Dancers stamp their feet hard against the wooden stage.
Similarstomp, pound, thump, beat
12
nouncountable
A small piece of paper with a design on one side and glue on the other, used to decorate letters or craft projects.
The scrapbook page was bright with floral stamps.
She chose a glittery stamp to finish the invitation.
Similarsticker
13
nounslangfigurativelycountable
A tattoo marked on the body.
The artist inked a bold stamp across his forearm.
She added another stamp to the designs running up her back.
Similartattoo, tat
Note
Slang that borrows the image of an impressed mark, so that a tattoo becomes something stamped onto the skin. It belongs to casual talk. In medical, legal or other formal description, tattoo is the word to use. Because the sense is figurative, context has to carry it. Without that context, a stamp on someone's arm is more likely to be read as an inked or pressed mark.
14
nounslangcountable
A single dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD.
She split a stamp with her friend before the concert.
A single stamp can cause hours of vivid hallucinations.
Similartab, hit
Note
Drug slang, best kept to contexts where that meaning is plainly intended. In ordinary speech, listeners will hear the postage stamp first. It counts like any noun, so you can speak of a stamp, half a stamp or two stamps, each one a single dose. When writing for a general audience, name the drug, LSD, and state the dose plainly.
15
noun
The character, type, or distinguishing quality that marks a person or thing; a sign or evidence of a particular nature.
Few politicians of his stamp remain in office today.
The building bears the unmistakable stamp of its famous architect.
Similarhallmark, mark, kind, sort, type
Note
A sense that almost always works inside a phrase. In expressions like of a very different stamp, of a sturdy stamp or men of his stamp, the word sorts people, horses or things by kind, much as of a different sort would. The other pattern, the stamp of something, names the mark a quality leaves, as in the stamp of criminality. John Locke in 1689 writes of ideas not yet current "by the public stamp," where the image of an official mark still shows through.
16
nouncountable
A heavy pestle raised by water or steam power and dropped to crush ores.
Water power drove the heavy stamp that crushed the quartz.
A row of stamps thundered day and night at the mill.
Note
Here the word keeps its oldest job. Old English stempan meant "to pound in a mortar," and this pestle does exactly that on a grand scale, with ore in place of grain. It shares the crushing ancestry behind the foot-stamp. It is, however, the one sense in which a machine rather than a foot does the pounding.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English stampen ("to pound, crush"), from Old English roots meaning "to crush or pound," going back through Proto-Germanic *stampōną ("to trample, beat") to Proto-Indo-European *stemb- ("to trample down"); it is related to Dutch stampen, German stampfen, and Swedish stampa. Marks showing that postage had been paid were originally made by stamping the item, and when small pieces of paper were introduced for this purpose, the word "stamp" was carried over to them.