trample

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

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

• 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

   • Bible, Matthew vii. 6

     Neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess‎:

     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.
   • Charles Dickens

     […] 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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cowper to this entry?)

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

trample

1. First-person singular present of trampeln.
2. Imperative singular of trampeln.
3. First-person singular subjunctive I of trampeln.
4. Third-person singular subjunctive I of trampeln.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtramplə/

trample

1. to tread
2. to trample

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary