food stamp (plural food stamps)

1. A stamp or similar paper document (e.g. coupon) issued to be exchanged in shops or storage facilities for food, or (by extension) for other essential provisions, notably in a rationing system or as a non-financial form of welfare benefit.

   The authorities claim they turned from unemployment checks to food stamps to avoid alcoholics wasting their families' allowances in pubs.

   • 2025 June 3, David Smith, “Elon Musk calls Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax bill a ‘disgusting abomination’”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 3 June 2025:

     The bill extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and includes new spending for border security and the military. Republicans aimed to offset these costs with cuts to programmmes^[sic] such as Medicaid, food stamps and green-energy tax credits.

• → Spanish: fustán

• electronic benefit transfer
• ration card
• ration stamp
• ration coupon
• revenue stamp

• “food stamp”, in Collins English Dictionary, 2011–present.
• “food stamp”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “food stamp”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “food stamp”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.