leap

/ˈliːp/UK[ˈlɪi̯p]

leap verb: to jump.

Image: Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

leap (third-person singular simple present leaps, present participle leaping, simple past leaped or leapt or (archaic) lept or (obsolete) lope, past participle leaped or leapt or (archaic) lept or (obsolete) lope or (obsolete) lopen)

(intransitive) To jump.
- It is grete nede a man to go bak to recouer the better his leepc. 1450, anonymous author, Merlin
- I, I defie thee: wert not thou next him when he leapt into the Riuer?1600, anonymous author, The wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll, act 4
Synonyms:

bound, hop, jump, spring
(transitive) To pass over by a leap or jump.
- to leap a wall or a ditch
- ⁠Deep folly! yet that this could be—
  ⁠That I could wing my will with might
  ⁠To leap the grades of life and light,
  And flash at once, my friend, to thee: […]1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XL”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 62
(archaic, transitive) To copulate with (a female beast)
(archaic) To copulate with (a human)
- go leap her, and engender young devilings1616–1619 (first performance), John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Nathan Field, “The Knight of Malta”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […]...
(transitive) To cause to leap.
- to leap a horse across a ditch

Noun (1)

leap (plural leaps)

The act of leaping or jumping.
- He made a leap across the river.
- Leaps from one Extream to Another , are Unnatural Motions in the Course of our lives and Humours1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC
The distance traversed by a leap or jump.
(collective) A group of leopards.
- Manikanta returned to the palace riding on a royal tiger accompanied by a leap of leopards to the utter surprise of the inhabitants of Pantalam.1970, The Calcutta Review, page 373
- I can see it now... a leap of Leopards eating the carcass of a Longhorn out in the Vista....2005 July 23, Next Windows to be named "Vista".
(figuratively) A significant move forward.
- That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.1969 July 20, Neil Armstrong, as he became the first man to step on the moon
- Since the arrival of mainstream pornography platforms in the early 2000’s and the rise in smartphone use, online pornography consumption has shown considerable year on year leaps.2024 May 30, Germano Vera Cruz, Elias Aboujaoude, Magdalena Liberacka-Dwojak, Monika Wiłkość-Dębczyńska, Lucien Rochat, Riaz Khan, Yasser Khazaal, “How much online pornography is too much? A...
(figuratively) A large step in reasoning, often one that is not justified by the facts.
- It's quite a leap to claim that those cloud formations are evidence of UFOs.
A fault.
Copulation (by a male animal) with a female one.
- Much difference of opinion exists as to the number of bullings a cow should receive. Here, I think, good judgment should be used. If the bull is cool and quiet, and some time has intervened since he had his last cow, one good leap is better than more […]1865, British Farmer's Magazine, number 48, page 8
A passing from one note to another by an interval, especially by a long one, or by one including several other intermediate intervals.
A small cataract over which fish attempt to jump; a salmon ladder.
- He unfortunately persevered, and the cot veered round towards the fall of the leap, and was running fast towards the rapids, when Mr. Craven lost his self-possession, and jumped out to gain a rock within a length of him, but did not succe[e]d, and he sunk in a part of the river over the leap called...1837, The New Sporting Magazine, volume 12, page 358
- […] where the Esk divides it in the middle, and forms a linn or leap, is named the How burn; […]1868, John Marius Wilson, The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland, page 24

Adjective

leap (not comparable)

(calendar) Intercalary, bissextile.

Noun (2)

leap (plural leaps)

A trap or snare for fish, made from twigs; a weely.
Half a bushel.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: LEAP

LEAP

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol.
A solution stack consisting of the Linux operating system, Eucalyptus cloud, AppScale cloud computing framework, and Python programming language.
(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of long-term equity anticipation security, a kind of option having an expiry date farther (running about a year or longer) than the regular ones.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Leap

Leap (plural Leaps)

A surname.

leap meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Sanskrit

leap in Hindi

to jump — see also jump: कूदना kūdnā, उछलना uchalnā
the act of leaping — see also jump: कूदना kūdnā, छलांगना chalāṅgnā

leap in Tamil

to jump — see also jump: பாய் pāy, தாவு tāvu

leap in Gujarati

to jump — see also jump: કૂદવું kūdvũ, ઠેકવું ṭhekvũ

leap in Sanskrit

to jump — see also jump: प्रवते pravate, हठति haṭhati

More languagesFewer languages

leap in Tagalog: sumibol, lumukso, luksuhin, lumundag
leap in Arabic: وَثَبَ waṯaba
leap in Indonesian: lompat, loncat, melompat, meloncat
leap in Persian: جستن jastan, سکیزیدن sekizidan
leap in Thai: เผ่น pheen
leap in Vietnamese: thành tích, tiến bộ

Examples of leap in a sentence

Th’ infernal monarch rear’d his horrid head, Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune’s arm should lay His dark dominions open to the day.1783, Hugh Blair, from the “Iliad” in Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, lecture 4, page 65
I leap!” And, in very truth, run and leap he did, gambolling wildly down the stretch of lawn outside the long window.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 139:
Without the Chop Chop Chop Chop Cowville seems almost normal: no hover of helicopters, no leap of leopards.2009, Cooper, The President's Dilemma: A Novel, page 131:
He unfortunately persevered, and the cot veered round towards the fall of the leap, and was running fast towards the rapids, when Mr.1837, The New Sporting Magazine, volume 12, page 358:

All 40 example sentences with leap

Synonyms of leap

Forms of leap

Verb
third-person singular present	leaps
present participle	leaping
past	leaped
past	leapt
past participle	leaped
past participle	leapt
past (archaic)	lept
past (obsolete)	lope
past participle (archaic)	lept
past participle (obsolete)	lope
past participle (obsolete)	lopen
Noun
plural	leaps
alternative form	leep
Proper noun
plural	Leaps

Past tense of leap: leaped or leapt

Plural of leap: leaps

Origin of leap

From Middle English lepen, from Old English hlēapan, from Proto-West Germanic *hlaupan, from Proto-Germanic *hlaupaną. Doublet of lope, lowp, elope, gallop, galop, interlope, and loop. Cognate with North Frisian laap, luup, luupe (“to jog, run, walk”), Saterland Frisian lope, loope (“to run”), West Frisian ljeppe (“to jump”), Dutch lopen (“to run; to walk”), German laufen (“to run; to walk”), Limburgish loupe (“to jog, run, walk”), Low German lopen, loupen (“to run”), Luxembourgish lafen (“to run”), Vilamovian łaojfa (“to run”), Danish løbe (“to run”), Faroese leypa (“to jump”), Icelandic hlaupa (“to run; to jump”), Norwegian Bokmål løpe (“to run”), Norwegian Nynorsk laupa, laupe, løpa, løpe (“to run”), Swedish löpa (“to run”), from Proto-Indo-European *klewb- (“to spring, stumble”) (compare Lithuanian šlùbti ‘to become lame’, klùbti ‘to stumble’).

From Middle English lep, from Old English lēap (“basket”), from Proto-West Germanic *laup, from Proto-Germanic *laupaz (“container, basket”). Cognate with Icelandic laupur (“basket”).

Scottish and English surname, from the noun leap (“basket”). Compare Leeper.

Words formed from leap

Phrases with leap

4 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with leap

30 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about leap

What does leap mean?: Leap means to jump.
What is leap in Hindi?: Leap in Hindi is कूदना (kūdnā), उछलना (uchalnā), छलांगना (chalāṅgnā). See Leap meaning in Hindi.
How do you use leap in a sentence?: Th’ infernal monarch rear’d his horrid head, Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune’s arm should lay His dark dominions open to the day.
What part of speech is leap?: Leap can be a verb, a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce leap?: Leap is pronounced /ˈliːp/.
What is the past tense of leap?: The past tense of leap is leaped.

Words near leap in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: leap (page history and authors); LEAP (page history and authors); Leap (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-leap.ogg.

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