pap
/pæp/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
General South African/pap/
pap noun: food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children. Also the alternative letter-case form of Pap.
Noun (1)
pap (countable and uncountable, plural paps)
- Food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children.
- Pap can be made from bread boiled in milk or water.
- Pablum or nonsense.
- Porridge.
- Pap and wors are traditionally eaten at a braai.
- A fermented cereal pudding made from corn, sorghum, or millet
- Support from official patronage.
- Treasury pap
- The pulp of fruit.
- I hold it not amisse to take Pills in the pap of a rosted apple.1633, James Hart, The Diet of the Diseased
- A child's head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple.1761, [Laurence Sterne], chapter XVI, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume III, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], →OCLC, page 72
Verb (1)
pap (third-person singular simple present paps, present participle papping, simple past and past participle papped)
- To feed with pap.
- But I'll so pap him up - nothing too dear for him : What a sweet scent he has !c. 1619–1623, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Custome of the Countrey”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC...
Noun (2)
pap (plural paps)
- A female breast or nipple.
- But th'other rather higher did arise, / And her two lilly paps aloft displayd, / And all, that might his melting hart entise / To her delights, she vnto him bewrayd […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- they doe not onely weare jewels at their noses, in their lip and cheekes, and in their toes, but also big wedges of gold through their paps [translating tetins] and buttocks[…].1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
- A man's breast.
- Adrianus the Emperour made his Physition to marke and take the just compasse of the mortall place about his pap, that so his aime might not faile him, to whom he had given charge to kill him.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 13, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
- A rounded, nipple-like hill or peak.
- the paps of Jura1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC
Adjective
pap (comparative more pap, superlative most pap)
- Weak, feeble; lacking substance.
- His chest hangs like soft tits in his vest. He is pap. I could easily hit him. I could kill him if I wanted to.1975, Sheila Roberts, Outside Life's Feast: Short Stories, Johannesburg: Ad. Donker, →ISBN, page 27
- Spineless, wet, without character.
- He is so pap and boring.
- Flat.
- I got a puncture and the wheel went pap.
Verb (2)
pap (third-person singular simple present paps, present participle papping, simple past and past participle papped)
- To take a surreptitious photograph of (someone, especially a celebrity) without their consent.
- Look, that pop star’s been papped in her bikini again!
- The star of Netflix’s Wednesday, 20-year-old Jenna Ortega (another Gen Z actor) was recently papped holding an iPhone and chuffing on a straight cigarette (the fact that this was a pap photo is all the more throwback).2023 June 16, Daisy Jones, “Cool, sexy and stinking of smoke: why are TV dramas giving cigarettes a comeback?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
Noun (3)
pap (plural paps)
- Pa; father.
- Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in...1884, Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Proper noun capitalized: PAP
PAP
- Initialism of People's Action Party.
- @Gary, are you a PAP agent? ... =) trying to incite rebellion and revolution on this site so that the govt will have an excuse to take down this site?Paragraph 4, Public Prosecutor v Yue Mun Yew Gary [2012] SGHC 188
- Pay And Pay (nickname for the People's Action Party)
- Initialism of People's Armed Police.
Noun (4) capitalized: PAP
PAP (plural PAPs)
- polyfluoroalkyl phosphate ester
- Initialism of password authentication protocol.
- Abbreviation of past active participle.
- Abbreviation of present active participle.
- Initialism of principle of alternate possibilities.
- Initialism of prostatic acid phosphatase.
- Initialism of participatory anthropic principle.
- Acronym of positive airway pressure.
- A positive airway pressure machine, a PAP device.
Verb (3) capitalized: PAP
PAP
- Post a picture.
Noun (5) capitalized: Pap
Pap (plural Paps)
- Ellipsis of Pap smear.
- If you have any abnormal symptoms, such as spotting between periods or bleeding after intercourse, keep pursuing the cause even if your last Pap was normal.1996 [1995], Richard N. Podell, William Proctor, Patient Power: How to Protect Yourself from Medical Error, New York, NY: Fireside, →ISBN, page 152
- Synonyms:
- Pap test
Also used as
pap is also the alternative letter-case form of Pap.
pap is also the clipping of paparazzo.
pap meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Telugu
pap in Hindi
- पैप
pap in Marathi
- पॅप
pap in Bengali
- প্যাপ
pap in Telugu
- ప్యాప్
More languagesFewer languages
- pap in Kannada
- ಪ್ಯಾಪ್
- pap in Punjabi
- ਪੈਪ
- pap in Gujarati
- પેપ
- pap in Nepali
- प्याप
Examples of pap in a sentence
- And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 11:27:
- I took the dagger out and kissed it. / Like a cat’s tongue that daintily laps, / I slipped it in between her paps.1907, Aleister Crowley, “Stone of the Philosophers Which Is Hidden in the Mountain of Abiegnus”, in Konx Om Pax, page 87:
- Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more.1884, Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
Synonyms of pap
20 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of pap
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | paps |
| plural | PAPs |
| plural | Paps |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | paps |
| present participle | papping |
| past participle | papped |
| past | papped |
| alternative form | pap |
Origin of pap
From Middle English pap. Related to Middle Low German pappe, Dutch pap, German Pappe (“pap, porridge; wheatpaste; cardboard”), Old French papa/pape, Latin pappa, Bulgarian папам (papam, “to eat”) and Serbo-Croatian папати/papati (“to eat”), among others. The relationships between these words are difficult to reconstruct. The Germanic word is either a borrowing from Latin or, perhaps more probably, an independent formation in baby-talk.
From Middle English pappe, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Latin papilla; or perhaps compare Old Swedish papp (“breast, nipple”), from Proto-Germanic *pap- (“nipple”), of imitative origin, or from Proto-Indo-European *pap- (“pock mark, nipple”); Swedish dialectal papp, pappe, Swedish patt, Danish patte, North Frisian pap, pape, papke (“breast, pap”).
Ellipsis of Pap smear.
Words formed from pap
Phrases with pap
Words that rhyme with pap
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- scrap
- map
- rap
- slap
- overlap
- crap
- sap
- yap
- bap
- unwrap
- app
- chap
- dap
- frappe
- nap
- uncap
- wap
- entrap
- enwrap
- fap
- frap
- hap
- jap
- minimap
- Phrygian cap
- plap
- recap
- whap
- anion gap
- asap
- bad rap
- belap
- betrap
- cloth cap
- Fanny Murray cap
- FAPP
- GAAP
- ion trap
- katsap
- lagniappe
- mishap
- Noddy cap
- scap
- shrap
- stap
- umbelap
- unstrap
- voting cap
Questions about pap
- What does pap mean?
- Pap means food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children.
- What is pap in Hindi?
- Pap in Hindi is पैप. See Pap meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use pap in a sentence?
- And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.
- What part of speech is pap?
- Pap can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce pap?
- Pap is pronounced /pæp/.
- What is the plural of pap?
- The plural of pap is paps.
Words near pap in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pap (page history and authors); PAP (page history and authors); Pap (page history and authors); pap (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pap (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-pap.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.