sapping

sapping is the present participle and gerund of sap.

Noun

sapping (plural sappings)

The act by which something is sapped or depleted.
- December 22, 1821, Joseph Story, Address Delivered Before the Members of the New-England Society, in Charleston
  [The government] may be destroyed by popular violence, or the madness of party, or the deeper sappings of corruption.
The act of excavating trenches.
The act of striking with a sap or club.
- 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

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

(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
(transitive) To drain, suck or absorb sap from (a tree, etc.).

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

(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
(transitive) To gradually drain (someone's energy or vitality).
- to sap one’s conscience
(transitive) To pierce with saps.
(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

plural	sappings

What does sapping mean?: Sapping means the act by which something is sapped or depleted.
What is sapping the present participle and gerund of?: Sapping is the present participle and gerund of sap.
What part of speech is sapping?: Sapping is a noun.
What is the plural of sapping?: The plural of sapping is sappings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: sapping (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: 2026-09-02

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