stamping ground

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stamp·ing ground

(stăm′pĭng)

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

stamping ground

a habitual or favourite meeting or gathering place

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

stamp′ing ground`

a habitual or favorite haunt.

[1780–90]

stamping ground

, stomping ground - Stamping ground or stomping ground originally referred to a location frequented by animals.

stamping ground

noun

1. A frequently visited place:

haunt, rendezvous, resort.

Slang: hangout.

2. The natural environment of an animal or plant:

habitat, haunt, home.

Translations

ritrovo

stamping ground

[ˈstæmpɪŋˈgraʊnd] n to be sb's (old) stamping ground → essere il ritrovo (favorito) di qn

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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References in classic literature ?

"I'm sorry I frightened you out of your favorite stamping ground," he said rather aimlessly.

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Here alone were dews and rains, here alone was an open sea, here was water in plenty; and all this was but the stamping ground of fierce brutes and from its beauteous and fertile expanse the wicked remnants of two once mighty races barred all the other millions of Barsoom.

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All the way back to the stamping ground of the apes, Tarzan sought for an explanation of the strange power which had stayed his hand and prevented him from slaying Mbonga.

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So Malaita remains today, in the twentieth century, the stamping ground of the labor recruiters, who farm its coasts for laborers who engage and contract themselves to toil on the plantations of the neighboring and more civilized islands for a wage of thirty dollars a year.

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For that is the pity of the adventure-path, which is one of John Barleycorn's favourite stamping grounds.

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In their stamping grounds in the jungle the three were familiar figures.

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Since the loss of his mate, a great longing had possessed him to return to the haunts of his youth--to the untracked jungle wilderness where he had lived the life he loved best long before man had invaded the precincts of his wild stamping grounds. There he hoped in a renewal of the old life under the old conditions to win surcease from sorrow and perhaps some measure of forgetfulness.

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The adventure decided me never again to leave the limits of my prescribed stamping grounds until I was ready to venture forth for good and all, as it would certainly result in a curtailment of my liberties, as well as the probable death of Woola, were we to be discovered.

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"You'd have to go farther west to find my stamping grounds."

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I LOVED Chris Hughton's postmatch comments after Brighton won at his old stamping ground St James' Park.

Chris proved class by refusing to hammer Toon

Topspeed Dave Edwards Mr Christopher (6.50 Wolverhampton) Has gained all four career success at this course, including three at this distance, and his recent Southwell second suggests he could click for the fifth time on his favourite stamping ground.

Tips box

Bryan Ferry is returning to his old stamping ground next spring with a concert at Newcastle City Hall.