v. [app. a 19th-c. workmen’s word; perh. a back-formation from tampin (var. of TAMPION) taken as = tamping.]
1. trans. Mining. a. To stop up (a bore-hole) with clay, sand, etc., rammed in upon the charge before firing the shot; also, to pack up, (a gallery of a military mine) before firing it, in order to concentrate the effect. b. To ram home (the charge) in a bore-hole. Also absol.
1819. Faraday, in B. Jones, Life (1870), I. 301. Men … employed in making holes, tamping and blasting the rock.
1834. J. S. Macaulay, Field Fortif., 203. Then tamp, strongly and carefully the ends of the gallery, leaving the space intended to be demolished void.
1838. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., I. 292/1. The hole is tamped with dry clay to the top. Ibid. (1843), VI. 165/1. To form these chambers the rock was perforated…, and the different proportions of powder were introduced … and ‘tamped up’ close.
1860. Russell, Diary India, I. 199. The mines will soon be tamped, and the whole nest of temples [over the river at Cawnpore] will leap into the air amid fire and thunder.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 4 Dec., 2/1. All charges should be ‘tamped’—that is, pressed or secured in position with stones or other material wedged around them—wherever possible.
2. To stop up with clay or loamy earth the issues of a blast-fumace (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1877).
3. To ram down hard, so as to consolidate (earth, gravel, etc.); to pun; = POUND v.1 6; also to pack (anything) round with earth so rammed down.
1879. L. Stockbridge, Investig. Rainfall (Boston, U. S.), 5. [The lysimeter] was finished by throwing back and tamping in the earth which had been excavated on three sides.
1890. T. C. Clarke, in Railways Amer., 38. The track is raised, the gravel tamped well under the ties, and the track is ready for use.
1909. Installation News, III. 63. If the conductor is tamped round with granulated carbon.
4. Comb., as tamp-work, a surface made hard by tamping.
1855. R. F. Burton, El-Medinah, I. xiii. 370. He sees a plain like tamp-work, where knobs of granite act daisies.
Hence Tamped ppl. a., made hard and solid by pounding; Tamper, one who tamps a boring, etc.; also, a tamping-bar.
1819. E. Lake, Jrnls. Sieges Madras Army, 1817–9 (1825), 29 Jan., v. 191. Both chambers being completed, were loaded; the one on the left with 900, and that on the right with 315 lbs. of gunpowder. The hose was laid, and part of the mine tamped.
1864. Webster, Tamper, 1. One who tamps, or prepares for blasting…. 2. An instrument used in tamping; a tamping-iron.
1875. R. F. Burton, Gorilla L. (1876), II. 204. The flooring is hard, tamped clay.
1878. H. M. Stanley, Dark Cont., II. iii. 83. The compact clay and tamped floor.
