Word.ws English Dictionary

lapping up

lapping up is the present participle and gerund of lap up.

Meaning of lap up

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.

Questions about lapping up

What is lapping up the present participle and gerund of?
Lapping up is the present participle and gerund of lap up.

Words near lapping up in the dictionary

  1. Lappid
  2. lappie
  3. lappies
  4. Lappin
  5. lapping
  6. lapping up
  7. lappings
  8. Lappins
  9. Lappish
  10. Lappishness
  11. Lappland

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lapping up (page history and authors); 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.

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