vamp
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
Etymology: From Middle English vaumpe, vaum-pei, vampe (“covering for the foot, perhaps a slipper or understocking; upper of a boot or shoe”), or from Anglo-Norman vampe, *vaumpé (“part of a stocking covering the top of the foot”), from Old French avantpied, avantpiet, variants of avantpié, from avant (“in front”) + pié (“foot”).
Noun senses 2 and 3 (“a patch; something patched up or improvised”) appear to have been extended from sense 1 (“top part of a boot or shoe”). Sense 4 (“repeated and often improvised musical accompaniment”) was probably derived from sense 3, and sense 5 (“activity to fill or stall for time”) from sense 4.
The verb senses were derived from the noun. Compare also Middle English vaum-peien (“(uncertain) to repair (footwear) with a new upper or vamp; to fabricate an upper or vamp”).
Inflected forms:
form: vamps
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: vamps
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: vamping
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: vamped
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: vamped
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: The top part of a boot or shoe, above the sole and welt and in front of the ankle seam, that covers the instep and toes; the front part of an upper; the analogous part of a stocking.
pos: noun
examples: The flow of water was in my ears, and in my eyes a hazy spreading, and upon my brain a closure, as a cobbler sews a vamp up.
'Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 'and I am not well fitted either. I have had rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit for working days when I reach home.'
Their dark brown shoes had hand-stitched vamps.
gloss: Something added to give an old thing a new appearance.
pos: noun
gloss: Something patched up, pieced together, improvised, or refurbished.
pos: noun
gloss: A repeated and often improvised accompaniment, usually consisting of one or two measures, often a single chord or simple chord progression, repeated as necessary, for example, to accommodate dialogue or to anticipate the entrance of a soloist.
pos: noun
examples: I would go even further and say that, once [Stephen] Sondheim had ceased to compose classical music with its nonspecific accompaniments, he began to explore how effectively a vamp can flesh out a character for the stage. He had little need to write distinctive vamps for his Williams [College] shows, but already in 1954—before the highly characteristic vamps in West Side Story—we see him growing in his ability to get under a character's skin through his accompaniment.
On the mega-rave circuit, a pop hardcore sound gradually emerged, fusing the piano vamps and shrieking divas of 1989-era Italo house with Belgian hardcore's monster-riffs and Shut Up and Dance style breakbeats and rumblin' bass.
gloss: An activity or speech intended to fill or stall for time.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
gloss: To patch, repair, or refurbish.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 'Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will show my spirit.' 'Not so,' says the good Heaven; 'plod and plough, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by.'
gloss: Often as vamp up: to fabricate or put together (something) from existing material, or by adding new material to something existing.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He has vamp'd an old speech, and the court to their sorrow, / Shall hear him harangue against Prior to morrow.
For instance, you take the uncompleted books of living authors, fresh from their hands, wet from the press, cut, hack, and carve them to the powers and capacities of your actors, and the capability of your theatres, finish unfinished works, hastily and crudely vamp up ideas not yet worked out by their original projector, but which have doubtless cost him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights; […]
With real though rude art, the harlequin danced slowly backwards out of the door into the garden, which was full of moonlight and stillness. The vamped dress of silver paper and paste, which had been too glaring in the footlights, looked more and more magical and silvery as it danced away under a brilliant moon.
gloss: To cobble together, to extemporize, to improvise.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: A paſt, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, nevv piece, / 'Tvvixt Plautus, Fletcher, Congreve, and Corneille, / Can make a C——r, Jo——n, or O——ll.
Two pence he had gotten by begging, that 's all; / One bought him a bruſh, and one a black ball; / […] / Thus vamp'd and accoutred, with clouts, ball, and bruſh, / He gallantly ventur'd his fortune to puſh; […]
[S]ome men, nay, even some monks and brothers of this very house, are so envious of my state and foes to my peace of mind, that whenever they see me more happy and fuller of hope than common, they vamp me up some story or conjure some spectrum to disquiet me and sadden me!
gloss: To cobble together, to extemporize, to improvise.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
specifically
transitive
examples: "It is so unkind to joke about it," said the beautiful young lady. "What shall I do? If somebody will vamp an accompaniment, I can get on very well without any music. But if I try to play for myself I shall break down."
The band played ceaselessly. Even when the other instruments were resting the pianist kept up his monotonous vamping, with a dreary furbelow for embellishment here and there, to which some few of the dancers continued to shuffle round the floor.
[W]hen she [Billie Holiday] finally emerged from her dressing room, she would take her time getting to the stage, stopping and greeting people and even having drinks at the bar while her accompanists vamped.
gloss: To attach a vamp (to footwear).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The shoe is now ready to be vamped after the eyelets are put in.
gloss: To travel by foot; to walk.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
dialectal
examples: Well, vamp on to Marlott, will 'ee, and order that carriage, and maybe I'll drive round and inspect the club.
gloss: To delay or stall for time, as for an audience.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Keep vamping! Something’s wrong with the mic!
She went out there to vamp since the speaker was late arriving.
gloss: To pawn.
pos: verb
tags: UK
obsolete
slang
transitive
examples: 'I'll find my own fencing cove or else vamp it to a pawnbroker.'
Synonyms: enchantress
femme fatale
man-eater
mantrap
seductress
she-wolf
siren
temptress
vamp
vixen
wolfess
Antonyms: girl next door
ingenue
Casanova
promiscuous man
rake
Related words: promiscuous woman
Derived words: newvamp
revamp
vamp up
vamper
Translations:
lang: Spanish
word: ser trola
lang: Spanish
word: improvisar