Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A standing dead tree or tree stump, especially one killed by fire.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See rampick.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun dated, regional A standing dead tree.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

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Examples

  • Gran simply nodded as she stood as straight as a rampike, her hands folded.

    Secret of the Night Ponies JOAN HIATT HARLOW 2009

  • Gran simply nodded as she stood as straight as a rampike, her hands folded.

    Secret of the Night Ponies JOAN HIATT HARLOW 2009

  • Gran simply nodded as she stood as straight as a rampike, her hands folded.

    Secret of the Night Ponies JOAN HIATT HARLOW 2009

  • For miles and miles, we see nothing against the clear blue sky but the spiry tops of evergreens; or perhaps, a gigantic skeleton, "a rampike," pine or hemlock, scathed and spectral, stretches its gaunt outline above its fellows.

    Acadia or, A Month with the Blue Noses Frederic S. Cozzens

  • "The vein runs out on the face of a cliff, 'bout forty paces from the first rampike pine; there's three or four rampikes, but the fire hadn't gone far into the bush."

    The Lure of the North Harold Bindloss 1905

  • When the moon rose, round and white and all-revealing, and threw sinister shadows from rampike and rock, he kept to the densest thickets and felt oppressed with strangeness.

    The Watchers of the Trails A Book of Animal Life Charles George Douglas Roberts 1901

Comments

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  • I had no idea there was a word for "standing dead tree." Who knew I had a rampike in my yard? Thanks, freerice!

    May 15, 2008

  • We Wordniks, well-mannered though droll,

    Have wearied of Spamski the Troll.

    When a hideous spam spike

    Stands out like a rampike

    Please, Erin, quick chop down that Pole.

    April 28, 2016

  • Bravo!

    April 28, 2016