tramp, verb transitive

Origin:
English, DutchShow more General English tramp, influenced by Dutch trappen to tread, to thresh (grain), or trappelen to trample, or uittrappen to crush underfoot.
1. Often in the phrase to tramp out.
a. Obsolete except in historical contexts
i. To thresh (grain), using horses or, occasionally, oxen; trap.
Derivatives:
Hence tramping verbal noun, threshing.
1851 T. Shone Diary. 4 Mar.Henry and Jack and Billy on the farm with some horses tramping out oats for seed.
1851 H. James in F.C. Metrowich Valiant but Once (1956) 215Twenty-two of the horses had been kept here in the hopes of being able to tramp out the corn which was lying on the field — but the whole were carried off by the enemy the day after we ‘trekked’ to Post Retief.
1857 P.B. Borcherds in Cape Monthly Mag. I. May 323By the colonial system of tramping out the corn with horses, and depending on the wind for cleaning it, fifty muids of wheat will require, on the average, six days.
1864 T. Shone Diary. 7 Jan.This day was fine. Tramping Out oats with the horses.
1864 T. Shone Diary. 29 JuneG. Shone tramping of oats.
1865 T. Shone Diary. 22 Nov.This day was fine, Henry was Tramping out Barley with the Oxen.
1867 Blue Bk for Col. 1866 JJ4The wheat has not yet been tramped out.
1867 Blue Bk for Col. 1866 JJ20Owing to the rust having appeared both in the wheat and oats, and to some of the farmers having already tramped their wheat; it is feared that the latter will rise again to a high price.
1867 Blue Bk for Col. 1866 JJ41Two or three thrashing-machines are in use in the division, but the old system of tramping seems to find the greatest favour among the farmer.
1882 S. Heckford Lady Trader in Tvl 347I do not think that this Boer would have hired me his oxen had it not been for the persuasions of his goodnatured wife..for they, and all the young cattle, were being used for tramping out the corn.
ii. Special collocation.
tramp floor [translation of South African Dutch trapvloer], threshing floor.
1832 Graham’s Town Jrnl 18 Oct. 168Prisoner found the stick a little way from the further end of the house between the tramp floor;..it was a forked stick, with which corn is tossed up in the tramp floor.
[1842 J. Collett Diary. II. 26 Nov.Brot our two first Loads of Corn to the trap floor to day.]
1862 T. Shone Diary. 24 Mar.Henry brought a load of wheat to the tramp floar.
1896 R. Wallace Farming Indust. of Cape Col. 472The earlier custom still in use in most districts is the treading out of grain on the tramp floor or threshing floor, the work being done, not by cattle as in India, but by horses trotting round at a good pace.
1934 C.P. Swart Supplement to Pettman. 178Tramp Floor, The Anglicised form of the Afr. ‘trapvloer’, a threshing floor. Before the advent of the threshing machine, horses or oxen were employed to tread out the grain on ground floors, specially prepared for this purpose.
1969 D. Child Yesterday’s Children 38On the wheat farms the children loved to watch the threshing, when the harvested grain was trodden by horses’ hooves on a circular ‘tramp-floor’ hardened with a mixture of cow-dung and powdered antheap and surrounded by a low wall.
b. To overgraze (pasture or veld).
1916 L.D. Flemming Fool on Veld (1933) 61A bee more or less does not matter; they do not tramp out your veld.
1937 Handbk for Farmers (Dept of Agric. & Forestry)Another result of the old system of farming was overstocking and tramping out the veld, erosion of the soil and a general tendency towards degeneration of the most valuable species of karoo bush, while ‘opslag’ vegetation increased.
1971 Grocott’s Mail 27 July 3The ground is valuable if it is properly run, but now it just gets tramped out. Outspans are really out-of-date.
2. Especially in the Eastern Cape: to run (someone or something) over with a vehicle; often passive.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 508Tramp,..A curious use of this word prevails in many parts of South Africa, which appears to be due to the influence of the Cape Dutch word trap, to ride or drive over; e.g. an ox that has been run over by a railway train is said to have been ‘tramped’ by the train; a gate that has been smashed by a passing wagon is said to have been ‘tramped’ by the wagon.
1969 Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)I’ve shut the cat in the girls’ bedroom because I don’t want him to get tramped by the cars.
1970 D.M. McMaster Informant, Cathcart, Eastern CapeThe sheep was tramped by a car and is dead. This word used meaning ‘to run over’ is anathema to purists, but is is certainly in common use and very expressive.
1971 Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)‘That pup is always running around.’ ‘Yes, I’m afraid of the traffic.’ ‘Yes, he’ll get tramped.’
1975 Darling 3 Sept. 103Pa’s never been the same since..Uncle Max gets tramped by that car outside Carsten’s place.
1977 Radio South Africa 24 Jan.The person who tramped [the cat] didn’t even have the decency to stop.
1986 A. Jacot-Guillarmod Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)Not seen in print but often heard in Eastern Cape: He was tramped by a car (from Afrikaans).
1989 Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)There were no cars there, so she wouldn’t get tramped.
1992 D. Landman Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)He tramped the guy who was holding on to the passenger side window.
To thresh (grain), using horses or, occasionally, oxen; trap.
Special collocation.
To overgraze (pasture or veld).
Especially in the Eastern Cape: to run (someone or something) over with a vehicle; often passive.
Derivatives:
Hence (sense 1 b) tramped  participial adjective, overgrazed.
1974 E. Prov. Herald 2 Dec. 4Tramped hard soil prevented growth and litter accumulation must be built up so that rainfall will infiltrate into the ground.
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18321992

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tramp floor
tramped

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