sap
/sæp/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms saps sapping sapped
- noun (uncountable) The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
- noun (uncountable) The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
- noun Any juice.
- noun (figurative) Vitality.
- noun (slang, countable) A naive person; a simpleton. “Look at the sap mowing our lawn while we pretend our own lawnmower is broken.”
- verb (transitive, figurative) To exhaust the vitality of.
- verb (transitive) To drain, suck or absorb sap from (a tree, etc.).
- verb (transitive) To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.
- verb (transitive) To gradually drain (someone's energy or vitality). “to sap one’s conscience”
- verb (transitive, military) To pierce with saps.
- verb (transitive) To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.
- verb (intransitive) To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps.
- noun (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.
- noun (countable, US, slang) A short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.
- verb (transitive, slang) To strike with a sap (with a blackjack).
- proper noun (software) SAP AG, derived from the German Initialism of Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung, one of the world's largest software companies.
Synonyms
milksop saphead superabsorbent polymer super-absorbent polymer super absorbent polymer superabsorbing polymer super-absorbing polymer super absorbing polymer superabsorbent powder super-absorbent powder super absorbent powder superabsorbing powder super-absorbing powder super absorbing powder superabsorbent polymer powder super-absorbent polymer powder super absorbent polymer powder superabsorbing polymer powder super-absorbing polymer powder super absorbing polymer powder fool muggins tomfool blackjack cosh run down exhaust play out tire
Etymology
From Middle English sap, from Old English sæp (“juice, sap”), from Proto-West Germanic *sap (“sap, juice”) (compare Dutch sap, German Saft, Icelandic safi), from Proto-Indo-European *sab-, *sap- (“to taste”) (compare Welsh syb-wydd (“fir”), Latin sapa (“must, new wine”), Russian со́пли (sópli, “snivel”), Old Armenian համ (ham, “taste”), Avestan 𐬬𐬌-𐬱𐬁𐬞𐬀 (vi-šāpa, “having poisonous juices”), Sanskrit सबर् (sabar, “juice, nectar”)). More at sage.
sap (“naive person”) is a clipping of sapskull (literally “person with sap in their skull”).
From French saper (compare Spanish zapar and Italian zappare) from sape (“sort of scythe”), from Late Latin sappa (“sort of mattock”).
The sense evolution of from “subvert by digging” to “weaken” was influenced by the sense above “drain wood of sap” as trench warfare receded from public conscience.
Probably from sapling.
Abbreviation.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
- noun The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
- verb To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of. Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods, Their houses fell upon their household gods. Dryden.
- verb To pierce with saps.
Etymology [AS. sæp; akin to OHG. saf, G. saft, Icel. safi; of uncertain origin; possibly akin to L. sapere to taste, to be wise, sapa must or new wine boiled thick. Cf. Sapid, Sapient.]
Etymology [F. saper (cf. Sp. zapar, It. zapare), fr. sape a sort of scythe, LL. sappa a sort of mattock.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sap”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details