trample
Americanverb (used without object)
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tramples,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trampled,
past participle, past
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trampling
present participle
-
to tread or step heavily and noisily; stamp.
-
to tread heavily, roughly, or crushingly (usually followed by on, upon, orover ).
to trample on a flower bed.
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to act in a harsh, domineering, or cruel manner, as if treading roughly (usually followed by on, upon, orover ).
to trample on another's feelings.
verb (used with object)
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tramples,
present (3rd person singular)
-
trampled,
past participle, past
-
trampling
present participle
-
to tread heavily, roughly, or carelessly on or over; tread underfoot.
-
to domineer harshly over; crush.
to trample law and order.
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to put out or extinguish by trampling (usually followed byout ).
to trample out a fire.
noun
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the act of trampling.
-
the sound of trampling.
verb
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to stamp or walk roughly (on)
to trample the flowers
-
to encroach (upon) so as to violate or hurt
to trample on someone's feelings
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tramplesimple
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tramplessimple
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have trampledperfect
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has trampledperfect
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am tramplingprogressive
-
are tramplingprogressive
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is tramplingprogressive
-
have been tramplingperfect progressive
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has been tramplingperfect progressive
Past
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trampledsimple
-
had trampledperfect
-
was tramplingprogressive
-
were tramplingprogressive
-
had been tramplingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of trample
1350–1400; Middle English tramplen to stamp (cognate with German trampeln ); see tramp, -le
Explanation
To trample is to forcefully walk right over something or someone. If you fall down during a footrace, another runner might trample you. When you trample, you're stomping or stamping: it's the opposite of walking on tippy toes. A dog might trample a flower garden while chasing a ball, and an angry child might deliberately trample her sister's sandcastle, flattening it with her feet. The verb trample comes from tramp, "walk heavily or stamp," which is rooted in the Middle Low German word trampen, "to tramp, stamp, or press upon."
Vocabulary lists containing trample
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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"When Cultures Meet"
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Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was hard squaring the hulking mass of midshipmen who would nearly trample me at Herndon with these two polite teenagers prone to nervous laughter.
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2026
He even gets neighboring sheep farmers to bring their herds into his fields to trample the soil and eat the leftover plants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
The FPA called on the police to "immediately take action against the officers involved in this unprovoked assault and to act in the future to safeguard press freedoms, rather than trample upon them."
From Barron's ● Mar. 18, 2026
But urbanisation has seen encroachment onto these age-old grazing routes and locals accuse the Fulani of letting their cattle trample their crops and forcing them out of their homes and fields.
From BBC ● Nov. 27, 2025
Thankfully, they had reduced themselves to human size, so they didn’t accidentally trample partygoers under their feet.
From "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan
Martinique official Serge Letchimy hailed a vote that he said had come "to shatter a system that tramples on the truth, absolves the guilty, and scorns the victims".
From Barron's ● Jun. 2, 2026
“We are not a nation that tramples the 4th Amendment and tolerates our neighbors being terrorized,” he said.
From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2026
"The fascination of glow worms for me is that they are in effect magic," says ecologist Pete Cooper, as he tramples through thistles and nettles.
From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2023
“It tramples on students’ rights,” Bonta told reporters.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 28, 2023
William sees it, spins around, and nearly tramples Jeanne and Jacob—and me.
From "The Inquisitor's Tale" by Adam Gidwitz
Even sacred sites — with signage directing visitors away from the area — have been trampled by crowds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Then, in a separate incident, he was trampled unconscious by cattle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
And he barred the hospital from “aiding and abetting” any other party that might ask for help from these courts, including the children whose rights will be trampled by disclosure of their records.
From Slate ● May 19, 2026
From a standoff over a US Secret Service agent’s weapon to a US staffer trampled during a melee, tensions bubbled to the surface throughout Trump's visit to Beijing.
From Barron's ● May 15, 2026
On that day she saw the proud house humbled; green silk and velvet blowing out of windows, and the garden trampled by many horsemen, and the big gate open.
From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin
They were under strict instructions from Soils Solutions to avoid trampling the new lawn for six months.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
Bryson DeChambeau's two-shot penalty for trampling rough that improved the line of his swing path last Friday will not be forgotten.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
DeChambeau was accused of trampling on long grass close to his ball on the fifth hole.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
That makes them prone to trampling, said Candace Fallon, a senior endangered species conservation biologist at science nonprofit Xerces Society.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
But when he came in earshot he heard the trampling roar of sea on rock, where combers, rising shoreward, thudded down on the sucking ebb—all sheeted with salt foam.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
