trample
Americanverb (used without object)
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to tread or step heavily and noisily; stamp.
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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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to tread heavily, roughly, or carelessly on or over; tread underfoot.
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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.
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the sound of trampling.
verb
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to stamp or walk roughly (on)
to trample the flowers
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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
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are tramplingprogressive
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is tramplingprogressive
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have been tramplingperfect progressive
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has been tramplingperfect progressive
Past
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trampledsimple
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had trampledperfect
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was tramplingprogressive
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were tramplingprogressive
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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.
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
Joe Middleton, Devon site manager for the Woodland Trust, said: "Stay on the path, keep your dog on a lead, use the zoom on your camera, don't trample all over them."
From BBC • May 10, 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
Not even the creature’s eloquence moves Victor to self-reflection: “O Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 16, 2026
Hale toiled day and night for a pittance; he rode through storms—hail, lightning, sand—and survived stampedes, guiding the cattle into smaller and smaller circles before they could trample him.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
