hamper
1 Americanverb (used with object)
-
hampers,
present (3rd person singular)
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hampered,
past participle, past
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hampering
present participle
noun
noun
-
a large basket or wickerwork receptacle, usually with a cover.
picnic hamper;
clothes hamper.
-
British. such a basket together with its contents, especially food.
noun
-
a large basket, usually with a cover
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such a basket and its contents, usually food
-
a laundry basket
verb
noun
Usage
What does hamper mean? To hamper means to hold back or impede something or someone, as in The road crew hampered traffic, causing a line of cars that went back for miles. Figuratively, hamper can mean to interfere with or diminish, as in The singers practicing in the next room really hampered my ability to study. Related to this in nautical terms, a hamper is gear that is necessary but gets in the way. There is another sense of the noun hamper that comes from a different origin. This hamper is a large basket, often made of wicker (or something that looks like wicker) and having a cover. Most often, this type of hamper is associated with dirty clothes (a laundry or clothes hamper), but there are lots of things a hamper can hold, like a picnic lunch or small toys. Example: I hope this rain doesn’t end up hampering the party at all.
Synonym Usage
See prevent.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hampersimple
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hamperssimple
-
have hamperedperfect
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has hamperedperfect
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am hamperingprogressive
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are hamperingprogressive
-
is hamperingprogressive
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have been hamperingperfect progressive
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has been hamperingperfect progressive
Past
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hamperedsimple
-
had hamperedperfect
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was hamperingprogressive
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were hamperingprogressive
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had been hamperingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hamper1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English hampren; akin to Old English hamm “enclosure,” hemm hem 1
Origin of hamper2
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English hampere, variant of hanypere hanaper
Explanation
Anything that hampers slows progress or makes it difficult to do something. You might think that the presence of your parents hampers your ability to look cool. The verb hamper is for those times when normal progress is slow but not shut down completely. Hamper often describes travel during bad weather, like icy conditions that could hamper holiday travel. Hamper means "slow going." You may have heard of noun form of hamper, a container for holding dirty laundry: If your hamper is full, the need to do laundry could hamper your plans of going out and having fun.
Vocabulary lists containing hamper
Where the Red Fern Grows
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The Week in Words: March 24 - 30, 2018
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Wit, Wisdom, AND Vocabulary from Those We Lost in 2015
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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:
Adding to those anxieties is an intensifying conflict in the Middle East that is lifting oil prices and threatening to hamper the global economy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Another intense heatwave on Tuesday could further hamper firefighting efforts.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The state’s powerful doctors’ lobby, the California Medical Assn., also opposes the measure, arguing it would ban clinics from keeping funding in reserves and hamper their ability to upgrade equipment or expand to new locations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026
Reduced fundraising could hamper lending by private-credit funds, potentially affecting investment and triggering defaults for borrowers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
In the mornings, my paint cans remain undisturbed and there are no suspicious stains on any of Mom’s clothing in the hamper.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
It also stressed the need for greater transparency around how social media works as "opaque algorithms and content moderation hampers the ability of young users to understand why certain content is recommended, suppressed or removed".
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
The skills deficit hampers new grads as they are trying to launch themselves, he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
A shortage of components such as electrical transformers and gas turbines hampers data-center construction, and operators struggle to secure the immense amounts of electrical power required to run computing clusters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025
The fundraising was spearheaded by former teaching assistant Annie Jennings and personal trainer Lewis Wardale, who raised more than £4,000 to create 280 hampers.
From BBC ● Dec. 2, 2025
People in Spokane found their picnic hampers and filled them with sandwiches and loaded them in the backseats of their own cars and headed west.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
DWP officials concede they’re hampered by budget restraints, manpower limitations, long project timelines and the sizable footprint of the repairs needed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
Everyone I spoke with described the current process of tracing foodborne illnesses as laborious and slow and hampered by an absence of a unified approach.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2026
But global development has also been hampered due to the irregularity of research results.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Yet quality-control challenges, including software bugs, have hampered the Gravity’s production.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
This difficulty greatly hampered the work on the “cranberry chemical,” aminotriazole.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Despite firefighting efforts, strong winds are fanning flames and hampering containment operations - with local media reporting that firefighting aircraft have been unable to fly on Thursday morning.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
But it has struggled against a lack of enforcement power and several nations -- notably China, Israel, Russia and the United States -- do not recognise its jurisdiction, hampering its ability to investigate their nationals.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
The world’s leading AI labs are grappling with how to prevent or mitigate damage by malevolent users without hampering well-intentioned research queries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
Winds of up to 50 mph stoked the flames and severely limited the fire response by hampering boat and aircraft access to the remote island.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grovers nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a squadron of Kronos s demigods.
From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan
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.
