What is "vamp"

Vamp \Vamp\, v. i. To advance; to travel. [Obs.]

Vamp \Vamp\, n. [OE. vampe, vaumpe, vauntpe, F. avantpied the forefoot, vamp; anat before, fore + pied foot, L. pes. See Advance, Van of an army, and Foot.]

1. The part of a boot or shoe above the sole and welt, and in front of the ankle seam; an upper.

2. Any piece added to an old thing to give it a new appearance. See Vamp, v. t.

Vamp \Vamp\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Vamped (?; 215); p. pr. & vb. n. Vamping.] To provide, as a shoe, with new upper leather; hence, to piece, as any old thing, with a new part; to repair; to patch; -- often followed by up.

I had never much hopes of your vamped play.
--Swift.

"extemporize on a piano," 1789, from vamp (n.1) "upper part of a shoe or boot," via verbal sense of "provide a stocking (later a shoe) with a new vamp" (1590s), then "patch up, repair" (compare revamp). Related: Vamped; vamping.

"seductive woman who exploits men," 1911, short for vampire. First attested use is earlier than the release of the Fox film "A Fool There Was" (January 1915), with sultry Theda Bara in the role of The Vampire. The movie was based on a play of that name that had been on Broadway in 1909 (title and concept from a Kipling poem, "The Vampire," inspired by a Burne-Jones painting). The stage lead seems to have been played by Kathryn Kaelred and Bernice Golden Henderson. At any rate, Bara (born Theodosia Goodman) remains the classic vamp and the word's wide currency is attributable to her performance.\n\nA fool there was and he made his prayer\n
(Even as you and I!)\n
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair\n
(We called her the woman who did not care)\n
But the fool, he called her his lady fair\n
(Even as you and I.)\n

[Kipling, "The Vampire"]

"upper of a shoe or boot," 1650s, earlier "part of a stocking that covers the foot and ankle" (c.1200), from Anglo-French *vaumpé, from Old French avantpié "vamp of a shoe," from avant "in front" (see avant) + pié "foot," from Latin pes (see foot (n.)).

Etymology 1 n. 1 The top part of a boot or shoe, above the sole and welt and in front of the ankle seam, that covers the instep and toes; the front part of an upper; the analogous part of a stocking. (c

1. 1225) 2 Something added to give an old thing a new appearance; a patch. 3 Something patched up, pieced together, improvised, or refurbished. 4 (context music English) A repeated and often improvised accompaniment, usually consisting of one or two measure#noun, often a single chord or simple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord%20progression, repeated as necessary, e.g., to accommodate dialogue or to anticipate the entrance of a soloist. (ca. 1789) 5 An activity or speech intended to fill time or stall. 6 A volunteer fire fighter. v

2. 1 (context shoemaking English) To attach a vamp. 2 To walk. 3 To patch, repair, or refurbish. 4 (often as vamp up) to put together, improvise, or fabricate. 5 (context music English) To perform a vamp; to perform a repeated, often improvised accompaniment, e.g. under dialogue or awaiting the readiness of a soloist. 6 To stall or delay, as for an audience. Etymology 2

   n. 1 A flirtatious, seductive woman, especially one who uses sexual desire to exploit men. (c

   1. 1915) 2 (context informal English) A vampire. v

   2. (label en transitive) To seduce or exploit someone.

1. n. a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men [syn: coquette, flirt, vamper, minx, tease, prickteaser]

2. an improvised musical accompaniment

3. piece of leather forming the front part of the upper of a shoe

1. v. make up; "vamp up an excuse for not attending the meeting" [syn: vamp up]

2. piece (something old) with a new part; "vamp up an old speech" [syn: vamp up]

3. act seductively with (someone)

4. provide (a shoe) with a new vamp; "revamp my old boots" [syn: revamp]

Vamp (initiated in 1990) is a folk-rock band from Haugesund, Norway with founding members Øyvind Staveland, Calle Øyvind Apeland, Paul Hansen, Bjørn Berge, Odin Staveland and Tore Jamne. The band's musical profile is a mix of Norwegian traditional folk music combined with Celtic music and rock.

Vamp is a 1986 American comedy horror film directed by Richard Wenk, co-written by Wenk and Donald P. Borchers, and starring Grace Jones and Chris Makepeace.

1. Redirect List of Marvel Comics characters: V#Vamp

Vamp is a Brazilian telenovela produced and displayed at the time of 19 hours by Rede Globo, July 15, 1991 to February 8, 1992 in 179 chapters.

The VaMP driverless car was one of the first truly autonomous cars along with its twin vehicle, the VITA-2. They were able to drive in heavy traffic for long distances without human intervention, using computer vision to recognize rapidly moving obstacles such as other cars, and automatically avoid and pass them.

The VaMP was constructed by the team of Ernst Dickmanns at the Bundeswehr University of Munich and Mercedes-Benz in the 1990s as part of the 800 million ECU EUREKA Prometheus Project on autonomous vehicles (1987–1995). It was a 500 SEL Mercedes re-engineered such that it was possible to control steering wheel, throttle, and brakes through computer commands based on real-time evaluation of image sequences. Software was written that translated sensory data into appropriate driving commands. Due to the limited computing power of the time period, sophisticated computer vision strategies were necessary to react in real time. The Dickmanns team solved the problem through an innovative approach to dynamic computer vision. Attention control including artificial saccadic movements of the platform carrying the cameras allowed the system to focus its attention on the most relevant details of the visual input. Four cameras with two different focal lengths for each hemisphere were used in parallel for this purpose. Kalman filters were extended to handle perspective imaging and to achieve robust autonomous driving even in the presence of noise and uncertainty. Sixty transputers, a type of parallel computers, were used to deal with the enormous (by 1990s standards) computational demands.

In 1994, the VaMP and its twin VITA-2 were stars of the final international presentation of the PROMETHEUS project in October 1994 on Autoroute 1 near the Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris. With a safety driver and guests on board, the twins drove more than 1000 km in normal traffic on the three-lane highway at speeds up to 130 km/h. They demonstrated lane changes left and right, autonomously passing other cars after maneuver approval by the safety driver.

One year later, the autonomous Mercedes-Benz drove more than from Munich to Copenhagen and back in traffic at up to 180 km/h, again planning and executing maneuvers to pass other cars with safety driver approval. However, only in a few critical situations (such as unmodeled construction areas) a safety driver took over completely. Again, active computer vision was used to deal with rapidly changing street scenes. The car achieved speeds exceeding 175 km/h on the German Autobahn, with a mean distance between human interventions of 9 km. Despite being a research system without emphasis on long distance reliability, it drove up to 158 km without any human intervention.

Most current robot cars as well as commercial vehicles with driver assistance use GPS so that they know precisely where they are. However, the VaMP did not use GPS, and relied on vision only.

The VaMP and VITA-2 projects pioneered many hardware and software concepts that are essential for autonomous robots. They left a big impression on many observers and heavily influenced robot car research and funding decisions worldwide. Since May 2006, VaMP is on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany.