Pap

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pæp/
• Rhymes: -æp

Origins unclear. Related to Middle Low German pappe, Dutch pap, Old French papa/pape, Latin pappa, Bulgarian папам ("to eat") and Serbo-Croatian папати/papati ("to eat"), among others. The relationships between these words are difficult to reconstruct.

Full definition of pap

Noun

1. (uncountable) Food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children.Pap can be made from bread boiled in milk or water.
2. (uncountable, colloquial) Nonsense.
3. (South Africa) Porridge.Pap and wors are traditionally eaten at a braai.
4. (informal, derogatory) support from official patronageTreasury pap
5. The pulp of fruit.

Adjective

1. (slang, South Africa) Spineless, wet, without character.
• He is so pap and boring.

Verb

1. (transitive, obsolete) To feed with pap.

Middle English pappe, of uncertain origin. Perhaps form Latin papilla; or perhaps compare Old Swedish papp ("breast, nipple"), from Proto-Germanic *pap- ("nipple"), of imitative origin, or from Proto-Indo-European *pap- ("pock mark, nipple"); Swedish dialectal papp, pappe, Swedish patt, Danish patte, North Frisian pap, pape, papke ("breast, pap").

Noun

1. (now archaic) A female breast or nipple. from 13th c.
• Bible, Luke xi. 27the paps which thou hast sucked
• Spenser Faerie Queene, II.xii:But th'other rather higher did arise,
  And her two lilly paps aloft displayd,
  And all, that might his melting hart entise
  To her delights, she vnto him bewrayd ....
• 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 98:they doe not onely weare jewels at their noses, in their lip and cheekes, and in their toes, but also big wedges of gold through their paps and buttocks ....
2. (now rare, archaic) A man's breast. from 15th c.
• 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.13:Adrianus the Emperour made his Physition to marke and take the just compasse of the mortall place about his pap, that so his aime might not faile him, to whom he had given charge to kill him.
3. A rounded, nipple-like hill or peak.

Shortened form of Pap smear from Georgios Papanikolaou, American physician.

Noun

1. Pap smear

Adjective

1. (South African slang) Flat.I got a puncture and the wheel went pap.

From paparazzo

Verb

1. (usually in the passive) Of a paparazzo, to take a surreptitious photograph of (someone, especially a celebrity) without their consent.Look, that pop star’s been papped in her bikini again!

Anagrams

• app , App