noun

• (music) A repeated and often improvised accompaniment, usually consisting of one or two measures, often a single chord or simple chord progression, repeated as necessary, for example, to accommodate dialogue or to anticipate the entrance of a soloist.
  "I would go even further and say that, once [Stephen] Sondheim had ceased to compose classical music with its nonspecific accompaniments, he began to explore how effectively a vamp can flesh out a character for the stage. He had little need to write distinctive vamps for his Williams [College] shows, but already in 1954—before the highly characteristic vamps in West Side Story—we see him growing in his ability to get under a character's skin through his accompaniment."
• (by extension) An activity or speech intended to fill or stall for time.

verb

• (transitive) To patch, repair, or refurbish.
  "'Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will show my spirit.' 'Not so,' says the good Heaven; 'plod and plough, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by.'"
• (transitive) Often as vamp up: to fabricate or put together (something) from existing material, or by adding new material to something existing.
  "He has vamp'd an old speech, and the court to their sorrow, / Shall hear him harangue against Prior to morrow."
• (transitive) To cobble together, to extemporize, to improvise.
  "A paſt, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, nevv piece, / 'Tvvixt Plautus, Fletcher, Congreve, and Corneille, / Can make a C——r, Jo——n, or O——ll."
• (transitive) To cobble together, to extemporize, to improvise.
  ""It is so unkind to joke about it," said the beautiful young lady. "What shall I do? If somebody will vamp an accompaniment, I can get on very well without any music. But if I try to play for myself I shall break down.""

noun

• (informal) A vampire.
  "The leader of the vampire cult (played by Ramon D'Salva) leads his cult of fellow vamps in an attack against some nasty werewolves."

verb

• (transitive, intransitive) To seduce or exploit someone.
  "We want a musical-comedy star to vamp a Senator or a member of the Cabinet; we want the protective tariff revised up or down because of an actress' whim; we want scarlet scandal in high life. And we are not likely to get them."
• (fiction, slang, transitive) To turn (someone) into a vampire.
  "If I knew what I know now before I got vamped, I'd do the same thing."
• (intransitive) To cosplay a vampire.
  "I'm planning to vamp real hard at Friday night's party."