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trounce

verb /tɹaʊns/

  1. To walk heavily or with some difficulty; to tramp, to trudge.

    intransitive

    There were no railways then—well, not in Hazelworth, at any rate—and as coach-fares would have absorbed most of our stock of "Sunday pennies," we had to "trounce" every inch of our way to Manchester.

  2. To pass across or over; to traverse.

    intransitive

    "And at school everyone knows I'm Dana Winslow's younger sister. Mr. Johnson, the science teacher, even calls me Dana sometimes." / Dana looked up then. "Do you answer him?" / "I have to. If I don't he thinks I'm not participating." Aly got up and trounced over to the bookcase.

  3. To travel quickly over a long distance.

    intransitive

    Lyra trounces into the kitchen, a smile on her face. "Good morning, everyone! Morning, Grandpa. Morning, Gramps."

Where it comes from

The verb is derived from Middle English traunce, trauncen, trancen (“to move about (?); to prance (?); to trample the ground”) (whence modern English trance with the same senses), possibly either: * from Middle English trauncen, transen (“to pass from life to death, die”), from Old French transir (“to cut through, pass through”), from Latin trānsīre, present active infinitive of trānseō (“to cross, traverse; to go over (to a side or faction); to pass over; to exceed, surpass; of time: to elapse, pass; (figuratively) to cease, pass away”), from trāns (“across; beyond”) + eō (“to go”); or * a blend of Middle English tramplen (“to tread on, trample”) + dauncen (“to dance”) or prauncen (“to prance”). The noun is probably derived from the verb.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry trounce (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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