Word.ws English Dictionary

sap

/sæp/

sap noun: the juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.

sap: the juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating...
Image: Frank Vincentz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

sap (countable and uncountable, plural saps)

  1. (uncountable) The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
  2. (uncountable) The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
  3. Any juice.
  4. (figuratively) Vitality.
    • In the preceding centuries the Ashkenazic Synagogue song had been Germanized to a degree that jeopardized not only its distinctive Jewishness but its very existence. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, the ever-renewed Oriental sap penetrated also into the song.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 183
  5. (countable, slang) A naive person; a simpleton.
    • Look at the sap mowing our lawn while we pretend our own lawnmower is broken.
    • "Or trying to reproduce it."
      "The Mafia wouldn't do that."
      "Don't be a sap," Hiro says. "Of course they would."
      Y.T. seems miffed at Hiro.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 234
    Synonyms:
    milksop, saphead

Verb (1)

sap (third-person singular simple present saps, present participle sapping, simple past and past participle sapped)

  1. (figuratively, transitive) To exhaust the vitality of.
    • Somewhat he knoweth of art magical, yet useth not that art; for it sappeth the life and strength, nor is it held worthy that a Demon should put trust in that art, but rather in his own might and main.1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 6
    • While Tuchel will be delighted with the way his players responded, there will be concern at how much the energy-sapping 120 minutes has taken out of them.2022 April 12, Neil Johnston, “Real Madrid 2-3 Chelsea”, in BBC Sport
  2. (transitive) To drain, suck or absorb sap from (a tree, etc.).

Verb (2)

sap (third-person singular simple present saps, present participle sapping, simple past and past participle sapped)

  1. (transitive) To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.
    • Ring out the grief that saps the mind[…]1850, Alfred Tennyson, Ring, Out, Wild Bells
  2. (transitive) To gradually drain (someone's energy or vitality).
    • to sap one’s conscience
    • He saps my energy.
  3. (transitive) To pierce with saps.
  4. (transitive) 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.1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
    1. (intransitive, transitive) To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps.

Noun (2)

sap (plural saps)

  1. 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 (3)

sap (plural saps)

  1. (US, countable, slang) A short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.
    • I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops and Eddie Mars' gang. I dodge bullets and eat saps.1944, William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, The Big Sleep (screenplay)

Verb (3)

sap (third-person singular simple present saps, present participle sapping, simple past and past participle sapped)

  1. (slang, transitive) To strike with a sap (with a blackjack).
    • [A]s he passes the mouth of a narrow alley two men step out quickly. One of them saps Marlowe expertly — they drag him out of sight.1944, William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, The Big Sleep (screenplay)
    • And when he had me up there he would sap me again and I wouldn't remember anything that happened in between the two sappings.1964, Raymond Chandler, Killer in the Rain

Proper noun capitalized: SAP

SAP

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Scientific Advisory Panel.
  2. (South Africa, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of South African Police.
  3. (South Africa, abbreviation, initialism, obsolete) Initialism of South Africa Party.
  4. SAP AG, derived from the German Initialism of Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung, one of the world's largest software companies.

Noun (4) capitalized: SAP

SAP (countable and uncountable, plural SAPs)

  1. (UK, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of statutory adoption pay, payments made by an employer to an employee who is absent from work after the adoption of a child.
  2. (US, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of special access program.
  3. (abbreviation, acronym, initialism) Abbreviation of second audio program.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of structural adjustment program.
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of speech act participant.
  6. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of superabsorbent polymer.
    Synonyms:
    superabsorbent polymer, super-absorbent polymer, super absorbent polymer, superabsorbing polymer, super-absorbing polymer, super absorbing polymer
  7. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of superabsorbent powder, made of superabsorbent polymer.
    Synonyms:
    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

sap meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Sanskrit and Assamese

sap in Hindi

juice of plant
अर्क ark, अरक arak, निर्यास niryās, गोंद gond

sap in Telugu

juice of plant
పాలు pālu

sap in Sanskrit

juice of plant
रस rasa, निर्यास niryāsa

sap in Assamese

juice of plant
কহ koh
More languagesFewer languages
sap in Nepali
चोप cop
sap in Tagalog
dagta
sap in Arabic
نُسْغ nusḡ, عُصَارَة ʕuṣāra
sap in Malay
getah
sap in Indonesian
getah
sap in Persian
شیره šire, برونچوب borun-čub, اسکل oskol
sap in Thai
น้ำเลี้ยง nám-líiang
sap in Vietnamese
nhựa, mủ

Examples of sap in a sentence

  • In some 21st-century sugarbushes, plastic tubing conveys the sap to the sugarhouse.
  • Metroidvanias are an inherently clever genre, and the cleverness can sometimes sap a little of the energy.
  • Tequila is distilled Mexican liquor that comes from the fermented sap of a particular cactus.

All 40 example sentences with sap

Synonyms of sap

  • milksop
  • saphead
  • superabsorbent polymer
  • super-absorbent polymer
  • super absorbent polymer
  • superabsorbing polymer
  • super-absorbing polymer
  • super absorbing polymer
  • superabsorbent powder
  • super-absorbent powder
10 more synonymsFewer synonyms
  • 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

Forms of sap

Noun
pluralsaps
pluralSAPs
Verb
third-person singular presentsaps
present participlesapping
past participlesapped
pastsapped

Plural of sap: saps

Origin of sap

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.

Words formed from sap

Phrases with sap

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sap

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sap

What does sap mean?
Sap means the juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
What is sap in Hindi?
Sap in Hindi is अर्क (ark), अरक (arak), निर्यास (niryās). See Sap meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is sap?
Sap can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sap?
Sap is pronounced /sæp/.
What is the plural of sap?
The plural of sap is saps.

Words near sap in the dictionary

  1. Saora
  2. SAOs
  3. Saoshyant
  4. saouari
  5. saouaris
  6. sap
  7. sap ball
  8. sap balls
  9. sap faggot
  10. sap faggots
  11. sap fagot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sap (page history and authors); SAP (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-us-sap.ogg.

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