Sap

Pronunciation

• IPA: /sæp/
• Rhymes: -æp

From Old English sæp, from Proto-Germanic *sapōn (cf. East Frisian/Dutch sap, German Saft, Icelandic safi), from Proto-Indo-European *sab-, Proto-Indo-European *sap- (cf. Welsh sybwydd 'fir', Latin sapa ("must, new wine"), Russian сопли (sópli, "snivel"), Armenian համ (ham, "juice, taste"), Avestan višāpa 'having poisonous juices', Sanskrit sabar 'juice, nectar'), from *sap 'to taste'. More at sage.

Noun

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.

Derived terms

Probably from sapling.

Full definition of sap

Noun

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

Verb

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

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

Noun

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.

Derived terms

• sap fagot
• sap roller
• sapper

Verb

1. (transitive) To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.
• unknown date John DrydenNor 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.
• 1850, 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 — 12
• unknown date The TatlerBoth assaults carried on by sapping.

Anagrams

• APS
• asp, ASP
• pas, Pas, PAs
• Psa., PSA
• spa, Spa