ramp
/ramp
/noun
1A sloping surface joining two different levels, as at the entrance or between floors of a building: a wheelchair ramp...
- Michelle rolled my wheelchair up the ramp on the stage, and I got to the microphone.
- The temple rises from the valley floor in three colonnaded terraces connected by ramps.
- They would also like to see the playground levelled and a ramp installed.
1.1A movable set of steps for entering or leaving an aircraft.I stumbled up the boarding ramp and entered the code sequence that would open the main hatch for me....
- There was no flying, of course, as the ramps, runways and aircraft were also ice covered.
- They hoist their bags on to the ramp, step up into the back of the aircraft and pass their bags forward to the cargo hold.
1.2British A transverse ridge in a road to control the speed of vehicles.Paddy O'Callaghan said that adults and children were crossing the road on a speed ramp....
- Controversial speed ramps at the Woodstock Service Station in Athy will be lowered.
- If we cannot control this, we're going to have to have ramps on all the roads.
1.3North American An inclined slip road leading on to or off a main road or motorway: an exit ramp...
- It depicted a Jaguar, facing the exit ramp of the Main Street bridge.
- Local roads, turn lanes and inter-change ramps, rest areas, and highway approaches were part of the improvement as well.
- The exit ramp from the motorway took me down to a set of lights, sadly however it took everyone else down too and a queue of vehicles was waiting to get through the lights.
1.4 North American term for catwalk (sense 1).
2An upward bend in a stair rail.
3An electrical waveform in which the voltage increases or decreases linearly with time: a voltage ramp...
- During the phase ramp, fringing field effects smooth the phase profile.
- In fact, the reversal potentials were independent of the direction of voltage ramps.
- To commence near-field studies we provided voltage ramps to extend the near-field fiber repeatedly toward the sample.
4British informal A swindle, especially one involving a fraudulent increase of the price of a share: the Stock Exchange is investigating two blatant share ramps
verb
1 [with object] (often ramp something up) Increase the level or amount of (something) sharply: the company has moved into new quarters in order to ramp up production [no object]: the level of violence is ramping up...
- Production was ramped up so that in future they could achieve this level of output.
- It took a world war to finally ramp federal spending up to the levels needed to pull the economy out of the ditch.
- Production was radically ramped up, going from 15 a month in May 2003 to 450 a month today.
1.1British Drive up the price of (a company’s shares) in order to gain a financial advantage: (as noun ramping) a rule against share price ramping which forbids a broker to account for more than 30 per cent of trading in a share...
- Share ramping is an evil and insidious force within any economy.
- The web may be the future for our finances, but it's also prey for a new, illegal craze, share ramping.
- What's more, their wide spreads makes dealing in penny shares expensive, plus their prices are notoriously volatile and susceptible to ramping.
2 [no object] archaic (Of an animal) rear up on its hind legs in a threatening posture: they roared and ramped in cages (as adjective ramping) a ramping lion
2.1 [with adverbial of direction] Rush about uncontrollably: an awful beast ramping about the woods and fields
2.2 [with adverbial of direction] (Of a plant) grow or climb luxuriantly: ivy ramped over the flower beds
3 [no object] (Of an electrical waveform) increase or decrease voltage linearly with time: the integrated circuit’s output then ramps in the negative direction...
- The gels were run for 20 hours using switch times of 5 to 45 seconds ramped in a linear fashion.
- During a programming operation, the channel current is approximately zero, and the first voltage is ramped at a rate proportional to the injection current.
4 [with object] Provide with a ramp: (as adjective ramped) ramped access to public buildings...
- It is our firm opinion, on grounds of public safety, a ramped footbridge should be provided at this location.
- Ilkley Lido, which has been known to attract up to 15,000 people in one week during hot summer weather, does have disabled changing cubicles with ramped access to the outdoor pool and café.
- Facilities for disabled passengers should also be improved with ramped access to platforms being installed at the very minimum.
Origin
Middle English (as a verb in the sense 'rear up', also used as a heraldic term): from Old French ramper 'creep, crawl', of unknown origin. Sense 1 of the noun dates from the late 18th century.