Etymology: < French lampas (in 16th cent. also lampast), in 12–15th cent. gen., a disease producing intense thirst (e.g. attributed to ‘Dives’ in hell), later only a disease of horses. The origin is obscure. The primary sense may be ‘inside of the mouth’; this is not proved by the existence of the phrase humecter le lampas ‘to wet one's whistle’, but compare lampassé (Her.) ‘langued’ (see lampassing n.); some French dialect glossaries, also, have the word with the sense ‘uvula’. Florio has Italian lampasco as the name of the disease, and Littré cites a French dialect form empas, which is due to mistake of the initial l for the article.

Etymology: The combination lampas douck (Dutch doek cloth) in the second quot. suggests that the word may be adopted < Dutch; the recorded form in Middle Dutch and early modern Dutch is lampers (compare the English form lampors ); modern Dutch has lamfer (the Middle Dutch lamfeter , denoting some appurtenance of a hawk, is identified with this by Verwijs and Verdam, but with doubtful correctness). The etymology is quite obscure; derivation < Greek λαμπρός , shining, was suggested in the 16th cent. In sense 2 the English word is < French lampas, recorded only from the 18th cent., and possibly a different word.

Etymology: < lampas n.¹