sap

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Pronunciation 1.2 Etymology 1 1.2.1 Noun 1.2.1.1 Derived terms 1.2.1.2 Translations 1.3 Etymology 2 1.3.1 Noun 1.3.1.1 Translations 1.3.2 Verb 1.3.2.1 Translations 1.4 Etymology 3 1.4.1 Noun 1.4.1.1 Derived terms 1.4.1.2 Translations 1.4.2 Verb 1.4.2.1 Translations 2 Dutch 2.1 Pronunciation 2.2 Noun 3 Romani 3.1 Noun 4 Turkish 4.1 Noun 5 Volapük 5.1 Noun

[edit] English

Wikipedia

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /sæp/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}
• Rhymes: -æp

[edit] Etymology 1

From Old English sæp, from West Proto-Germanic *sap(p)om. Cognate with German Saft, Dutch sap, Icelandic safi; of uncertain ultimate origin, perhaps compare Latin sapere (“‘to taste, to be wise’”), sapa (“‘must or new wine boiled thick’”); see also sapid, sapient.

[edit] Noun

Wikipedia

sap (countable and uncountable; plural saps)

1. (uncountable) The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
2. (uncountable) The sap-wood, or alburnum, of a tree.
3. (slang, countable) A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop; a naive person.

[edit] Derived terms

[edit] Translations

[edit] Etymology 2

Probably from sapling.

[edit] Noun

sap (plural saps)

1. (countable, US, slang) A short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.

[edit] Translations

[edit] Verb

to sap (third-person singular simple present saps, present participle sapping, simple past and past participle sapped)

1. (transitive, slang) To strike with a sap (with a blackjack).

[edit] Translations

[edit] Etymology 3

From French saper (compare Spanish zapar and Italian zappare) from sape (“‘sort of scythe’”), from Late Latin sappa (“‘sort of mattock’”).

[edit] Noun

sap (plural saps)

1. (military) A narrow ditch or trench made from the foremost parallel toward the glacis or covert way of a besieged place by digging under cover of gabions, etc.

[edit] Derived terms

• sap fagot
• sap roller
• sapper

[edit] Translations

[edit] Verb

to sap (third-person singular simple present saps, present participle sapping, simple past and past participle sapped)

1. (transitive) To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.
   • (A date for this quote is being sought): John Dryden

     Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods, / Their houses fell upon their household gods.

2. (transitive, military) To pierce with saps.
3. To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.
   • (A date for this quote is being sought): Alfred Tennyson

     Ring out the grief that saps the mind.

4. (transitive) To gradually weaken.
   • to sap one’s conscience
5. (intransitive) To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps — (A date for this quote is being sought):W. P. Craighill
   • (A date for this quote is being sought): The Tatler

     Both assaults carried on by sapping.

[edit] Translations

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[edit] Dutch

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /sɑp/

[edit] Noun

sap n. (plural sappen, diminutive sapje)

1. sap (fluid in plants)
2. (countable and uncountable) juice

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[edit] Romani

[edit] Noun

sap m.

1. snake

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[edit] Turkish

[edit] Noun

sap

1. shaft

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[edit] Volapük

[edit] Noun

sap

1. wisdom