Vamps

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An assumed part of a musical arrangement often providing a repeating section
2. The front portion of a shoe or boot that covers the toes and instep
3. To improvise or create something, particularly in music or performance, often with a playful or spontaneous approach

Etymology: The word "vamps" is the plural of "vamp," and the noun's surprising route into English runs through a foot-covering. The Old French "avantpied," from "avant" ("in front") and "pié" ("foot"), named the front part of a shoe or stocking that covers the top of the foot. English borrowed it as "vaumpe" or "vampe" in the Middle English period, and the word settled into the sense of the upper of a boot or shoe, which is the meaning "vamps" carries here. From that sense, the word spread outward. Its meanings of a patch or something improvised came from the idea of a replacement upper put on to repair a worn shoe, and later senses about improvised musical accompaniment and stalling for time grew from those. The sense most people now know, a seductive woman, is a separate development: it is a clipping of "vampire," tied to a film character first played by Theda Bara in the 1915 film "A Fool There Was."

Synonyms: flirts, seducers, coquettes, temptresses, sirens

Antonyms: prudes, dullards, innocents