Word.ws English Dictionary

lap up

lap up verb: to consume by lapping; to drink (something) quickly.

Verb

lap up (third-person singular simple present laps up, present participle lapping up, simple past and past participle lapped up)

  1. (transitive) To consume by lapping; to drink (something) quickly.
    • The cat's lapping up the milk in its bowl
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To revel in, to overtly enjoy.
    • You could see she was pleased, she was lapping up the applause.
    • All this skirt, lappin' up the sun, lap me up1977, “Peaches”, performed by the Stranglers

Forms of lap up

third-person singular presentlaps up
present participlelapping up
past participlelapped up
pastlapped up

Questions about lap up

What does lap up mean?
Lap up means to consume by lapping; to drink (something) quickly.
What part of speech is lap up?
Lap up is a verb.
What is the past tense of lap up?
The past tense of lap up is lapped up.

Words near lap up in the dictionary

  1. lap steel guitar
  2. lap steel guitarist
  3. lap steel guitarists
  4. lap steel guitars
  5. lap steels
  6. lap up
  7. lap-chart
  8. lap-charts
  9. lap-dance
  10. lap-dancer
  11. lap-dancers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lap up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lap up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lap up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lap_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.