Other forms: stomping, stomps, stomped
To stomp is to put your feet down hard and loud. Stomping up the stairs after a row, stomping the snow off your boots at the door, a toddler stomping through a puddle in new wellies.
Anger is nearly always in it: you stomp off, stomp out of a room, stomp about the kitchen, and the whole house knows. You also stomp on things to crush them — stomp on a spider, stomp out a cigarette. The noun is the heavy step or its sound, and it names an old jazz dance built on that beat. Stomp is the American twin of stamp and both are used in Britain: stamp is the sharp downward movement, and the thing you stick on a letter, while stomp is the walking. It is informal, so a news report says the minister walked out, not stomped out.
1verbstompTo walk with heavy, loud steps, showing anger.
“She stomped upstairs and slammed the door.”
2verbbringTo bring your foot down hard on something; to crush it underfoot.
“He stomped on the cigarette and got back in the van.”
3nounsoundA heavy step, or the sound of one.
“You could hear the stomp of boots on the stairs.”
Stomp turns up in English around 1803 as a variant of stamp — one vowel changed and the new word stayed. German stampfen means much the same thing and sounds much the same way, which is a fair sign that the noise is doing the work.
1803, variant of stamp. Compare German stampfen (“to stomp”). More at stamp.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Hitting & Pushing
First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word