A tramp is ... The meaning of a word

It often happens that by the word we understand its approximate meaning, but when we are asked to explain it, we get lost and are lost, not knowing what to say. Something similar happens, for example, with the word "tramp". It is obvious that it is somehow connected with bare feet, but how? It is necessary to deal with this in more detail. A tramp is just someone who walks barefoot? But why is it used in a negative sense?

The lexical meaning of the word "tramp"

To be able to explain a word to another person, you need to figure it out yourself. The simplest way to find out what the word means is an explanatory dictionary. According to him, the "tramp" is:

• A descending, impoverished man from the "declassed" strata of society.
• A man without a place of residence.
• Fangled.
• Sometimes - a bully.

As you can understand, "tramp" - is any poor man who walks around the world "barefoot". In addition, with this word and its single-root "relatives", there are a number of frequently used expressions, and simply examples that help to assimilate its use. For example:

• Dressed like a tramp;
• Leads a lascivious way of life;
• The ruined house served as a refuge for the tramps;
• Looks like a bum.

The roots and history of the "tramp". Different versions

Most often people called people who do not have a place of residence and work, who are interrupted by accidental earnings and wander from a doss house to a doss house, beggars so often that they always went barefoot (that's why they have one root - "bos").

According to another version, the word "tramp" comes from port loaders. Allegedly they worked barefoot and slept also without shoes, packing in places where they could be hired, and on the feet they wrote a price, for which they were ready to work. The tenant had already seen the price in advance, and he had only to wake the necessary loader-tramp and immediately give him an assignment. Bargaining after the wake-up was extremely undesirable - because of the heavy and sometimes irascible nature of the port dwellers.