tamper
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: rail-transport
railways
transport
Etymology: From tamp + -er.
Base: tamp
Affixes: -er
Inflected forms:
form: tampers
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: tampers
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: tampering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tampered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tampered
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A person or thing that tamps.
pos: noun
gloss: A person or thing that tamps.
pos: noun
gloss: A person or thing that tamps.
pos: noun
gloss: To make unauthorized or improper alterations, sometimes causing deliberate damage; to meddle (with something).
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: tamper detection
The alarm had been tampered with and didn’t go off when it should have.
The election monitors found that a large number of ballots had been tampered with.
Our body is as a well-set clock which keeps good time; if it be too much or indiscreetly tamper’d with, the larum runs out before the houre.
[…] of those Books that passe for authentick who knows what hath bin tamper’d withall, what hath bin raz’d out, what hath bin inserted […]
[…] a small steel pistol was concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with the secret, should tamper with the lock which secured his treasure.
These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task […] no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.
Ain't no use to fight it / Don't tamper with my destiny / Any way you slice it / I'm in the hands of fate, you see
gloss: To try to influence someone, usually in an illegal or devious way; to try to deal (with someone).
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Prosecutors argued that he would tamper with witnesses if bail was granted.
[…] no man knowes whether a Wife and a Mother, which had such a latitude of power over the Father and the Sonne, would not be tampering with a Prince (even in the point of Religion) of so tender years as rendred him fit for any impression, and to be indoctrinated with such principles as well concerning Religion, as others best suitable to her own designes.
[…] as these passions and principles are inalterable, it may be thought, that our conduct, which depends on them, must be so too, and that ’twou’d be in vain, either for moralists or politicians, to tamper with us, or attempt to change the usual course of our actions, with a view to public interest.
The Maroons […] had not been tampered with by the French, nor had they themselves, at this time, tampered with the slaves.
You were talking of tampering, just now. Who tampered with Yorkshire schoolmasters, and, while they sent the drudge out, that he shouldn’t overhear, forgot that such great caution might render him suspicious, and that he might watch his master out at nights, and might set other eyes to watch the schoolmaster? Who tampered with a selfish father, urging him to sell his daughter to old Arthur Gride […]
gloss: To meddle (with something) in order to corrupt or pervert it.
pos: verb
tags: dated
examples: […] No Art used to inflame him, no Coquetry practised to tempt or intice him, and no Prudery or Affectation to tamper with his Passions; but, on the contrary, artless and unpractised in the Wiles of the World, all her Endeavours, and even all her Wishes, tended only to render herself as un-amiable as she could in his Eyes:
She therefore dissuaded Julia from attempting to tamper with the honesty of a servant who had the keys of the vaults […]
Is it not the tendency, born of Reconstruction and Reaction, to found a society on lawlessness and deception, to tamper with the moral fibre of a naturally honest and straightforward people until the whites threaten to become ungovernable tyrants and the blacks criminals and hypocrites?
gloss: To involve oneself (in a plot, scheme, etc.).
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: 1716, Joseph Addison, The Free-holder, No. 31, 6 April, 1716, London: D. Midwinter and J. Tonson, p. 180,
[…] he was beheaded upon the Defeat of the Conspiracy for having but thus far tampered in it.
gloss: To attempt to practise or administer something (especially medicine) without sufficient knowledge or qualifications.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: Certainly it is a scurvy strong troublesom purge, therefore ill to be tamperd with by the unskilful […]
[…] Corners of Streets were plaster’d over with Doctors Bills, and Papers of ignorant Fellows; quacking and tampering in Physick, and inviting People to come to them for Remedies;
[…] by reason of his continual studies, and the head-ach, to which he was subject from his youth, and his perpetual tampering with physic, his eyes had been decaying for twelve years before.
gloss: To discuss future contracts with a player, against league rules.
pos: verb
tags: Canada
US
Derived words: antitamper
antitampering
tamperable
tamperer
tamper-evident
tamperproof
untampered
witness tampering
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: трамбовчик
roman: trambovčik
lang: German
word: Stampfer
lang: Polish
word: ubijacz
lang: Polish
word: ubijaczka