ˈStamp Act, the BrE AmE
a British law made in 1765 which put a tax on Britain’s colonies (↑ colony ) in North America. According to this law, various documents had to carry a stamp, which had to be paid for. This caused a lot of anger in the colonies, and opponents of the law used the phrase ‘No taxation without representation’, meaning that it was unfair to make them pay taxes to Britain when they did not have any representatives in the British parliament. Although the tax was removed in 1766, the Stamp Act and the anger that it caused was one of the events that led to the American Revolutionary War.