means To stamp is to press a mark, seal, or design onto a surface — or the small adhesive label you buy to prove you've paid for a letter's journey.

from From Old English 'stampian,' to pound or crush, which is exactly what you'd do treading grapes or mashing grain. The word shares deep Germanic roots with words like German 'stampfen' (to stamp the feet) and is a cousin of 'stomp.' The thread running through all of them is force pressed downward — and a postage stamp keeps that ancestry alive, since the postal kind was originally an impression struck into paper, only later becoming the little gummed square we lick today.