damp

Etymology

From Middle English damp (noun) and dampen (“to stifle; suffocate”). Akin to Low German damp, Dutch damp, and Danish damp (“vapor, steam, fog”), German Dampf, Icelandic dampi, Swedish damm (“dust”), and to German dampf imperative of dimpfen (“to smoke”). Also Middle English dampen (“to extinguish, choke, suffocate”). Ultimately all descend from Proto-Germanic *dampaz.

Pronunciation

• enPR: dămp, IPA^(key): /dæmp/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æmp

Adjective

damp (comparative damper, superlative dampest)

1. Being in a state between dry and wet; moderately wet; moist.
   • 25 January 2017, Leena Camadoo writing in the The Guardian, Dominican banana producers at sharp end of climate change

     Once the farms have been drained and the dead plants have been cut down and cleared, farmers then have to be alert for signs of black sigatoka, a devastating fungus which flourishes in damp conditions and can destroy banana farms.

   • 1697, John Dryden translating Virgil, Aeneid Book VI

     She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,

     O'erspread with a damp sweat and holy fear.

   The lawn was still damp so we decided not to sit down.

   The paint is still damp, so please don't touch it.

2. (figuratively) despondent; dispirited, downcast
   • 27 July 2016, Jane O’Faherty in The Irish Independent, Monarchs and prison officers win big on second race day

     Though Travis's 'Why does it always Rain on Me' boomed around the stands, there were few damp spirits in Galway on day two of the races.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, ll. 522-3:

     All these and more came flocking; but with looks / Down cast and damp.

3. Permitting the possession of alcoholic beverages, but not their sale.
   • 2002, Dana Stabenow, A Fine and Bitter Snow, →ISBN, page 32:

     The Roadhouse was twenty-seve miles down the road from Niniltna, nine feet and three inches outside the Niniltna Native Association's tribal jurisdiction, and therefore not subject to the dry law currently in effect. Or was it damp? Kate thought it might have changed, yet again, at the last election, from dry to damp, or maybe it was from wet to damp.

Noun

damp (countable and uncountable, plural damps)

1. Moisture; humidity; dampness.
2. (archaic) Fog; fogginess; vapor.
   • Milton

     Night […] with black air / Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom.

3. (archaic) Dejection or depression.
   • Joseph Addison

     Even now, while thus I stand blest in thy presence, / A secret damp of grief comes o'er my soul.

   • J. D. Forbes

     It must have thrown a damp over your autumn excursion.

4. (archaic or historical, mining) A gaseous product, formed in coal mines, old wells, pits, etc.

Verb

damp (third-person singular simple present damps, present participle damping, simple past and past participle damped)

1. (transitive, archaic) To dampen; to render damp; to make humid, or moderately wet

   Synonym: moisten

   to damp cloth

2. (transitive, archaic) To put out, as fire; to depress or deject; to deaden; to cloud; to check or restrain, as action or vigor; to make dull; to weaken; to discourage.
   • 1857, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit Book 1 Chapter 34

     My Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister of this free country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance of its people.

   • To damp your tender hopes - Mark Akenside
   • Usury dulls and damps all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring if it were not for this slug - Francis Bacon
   • How many a day has been damped and darkened by an angry word! - Sir John Lubbock
   • The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers. - Thomas Babington Macaulay

3. (transitive) To suppress vibrations (mechanical) or oscillations (electrical) by converting energy to heat (or some other form of energy).

   • Hollow rollers damp vibration. -

Anagrams

• M.D. Pa.

Noun

damp c (singular definite dampen, plural indefinite dampe)

1. steam

Verb

damp

1. imperative of dampe

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑmp

Noun

damp m (plural dampen, diminutive dampje n)

1. vapour (UK), vapor (US)

Verb

damp

1. first-person singular present indicative of dampen
2. imperative of dampen

Etymology

From German Low German damp

Noun

damp m (definite singular dampen, indefinite plural damper, definite plural dampene)

1. steam
2. vapour (UK), vapor (US)

References

• “damp” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Etymology

From German Low German damp

Noun

damp m (definite singular dampen, indefinite plural dampar, definite plural dampane)

1. steam
2. vapour (UK), vapor (US)

References

• “damp” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Verb

damp

1. past tense of dimpa.