soap
/səʊp//soʊp/
soap noun: a metallic salt derived from a fatty acid, commonly used in cleaning products.
Noun (1)
soap (countable and uncountable, plural soaps)
- A metallic salt derived from a fatty acid, commonly used in cleaning products.
- Some other substance, often a detergent or another surfactant, able to mix with both oil and water, used for cleaning.
- I tried washing my hands with soap, but the stain wouldn't go away.
- She went to the shop to buy soap, but they had run out.
- Money, specially when used as a bribe.
- A soap opera.
- A solid masonry unit or brick reduced in depth or height from standard dimensions.
Verb
soap (third-person singular simple present soaps, present participle soaping, simple past and past participle soaped)
- To apply soap to in washing.
- Be sure to soap yourself well before rinsing.
- To cover, lather, or in any other manner treat with soap, often as a prank.
- Those kids soaped my windows!
- To be discreet about (a topic).
- Synonyms:
- soft-soap, soft-pedal, sugar soap, downplay
- To flatter; to wheedle.
- Synonyms:
- butter up, cajole, sweet-talk, blandander, blandish, sweeten, fast-talk, canoodle, carny, coax
Noun (2)
soap (uncountable)
- thiopental (sodium pentothal)
- 'Time? Doesn't have much meaning when they're trying to dry you out. I rather think they gave me a shot of soap at one point.' Soap is intelligence speak for sodium pentathol.2013, John Gardner, James Bond: The John Gardner Years
Proper noun capitalized: SOAP
SOAP
- Acronym of Simple Object Access Protocol, a standard Internet protocol for exchanging structured information in a distributed environment.
- The specified system will use SOAP for message exchange.
Noun (3) capitalized: SOAP
SOAP (uncountable)
- Acronym of subjective, objective, assessment, and plan.
soap meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
soap in Hindi
- substance
- साबुन sābun
soap in Tamil
- substance
- சோப்பு cōppu
soap in Marathi
- substance
- साबण sābaṇ
- apply soap in washing / cover with soap as a prank
- साबण लावणे sābaṇ lāvṇe
soap in Urdu
- substance
- صابُن sābun
More languagesFewer languages
- soap in Bengali
- সাবান śaban
- soap in Telugu
- సబ్బు sabbu
- soap in Malayalam
- സോപ്പ് sōppŭ
- soap in Kannada
- ಸಾಬೂನು sābūnu
- soap in Punjabi
- ਸਾਬਣ sābaṇ
- soap in Gujarati
- સાબુ sābu, સોપ sop, સાબૂન sābūn
- soap in Odia
- ସାବୁନ sābuna
- soap in Sanskrit
- फेनक phenaka
- soap in Sinhala
- සබන් saban
- soap in Assamese
- চাবোন sabün
- soap in Nepali
- सावुन sāwuna
- soap in Pashto
- سابون sābūn
- soap in Tagalog
- sabon
- soap in Arabic
- صَابُون ṣābūn, صابونة ṣabūna, صابون ṣabūn
- soap in Malay
- sabun
- soap in Indonesian
- sabun
- soap in Persian
- صَابُون sābūn, صابون sâbun
- soap in Thai
- สบู่ sà-bùu
- soap in Vietnamese
- xà phòng, xà bông
- soap in Myanmar
- ဆပ်ပြာ hcappra
- Dhivehi
- ސައިބޯނި saibōni
Examples of soap in a sentence
- You won't need as much soap, as the water here is very soft.
- What kind of gutter language is that? I ought to wash your mouth out with soap.
- The writers are killing off lots of people in the soap opera.
Synonyms of soap
20 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of soap
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | soaps |
| alternative form (obsolete) | sope |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | soaps |
| present participle | soaping |
| past participle | soaped |
| past | soaped |
Origin of soap
From Middle English sope, sape, from Old English sāpe (“soap, salve”), from Proto-West Germanic *saipā, from Proto-Germanic *saipǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *seyb-, *seyp- (“to pour out, drip, trickle, strain”). Cognate with Scots saip, sape (“soap”), Saterland Frisian Seepe (“soap”), West Frisian sjippe (“soap”), Dutch zeep (“soap”), German Low German Seep (“soap”), German Seife (“soap”), Danish sæbe (“soap”), Swedish såpa (“soap”), Norwegian Bokmål såpe (“soap”), Norwegian Nynorsk såpe (“soap”), Faroese sápa (“soap”), Icelandic sápa (“soap”), Finnish saippua (“soap”), Finnish suopa (“soft soap”). Related also to Old English sāp (“amber, resin, pomade, unguent”), Latin sēbum (“tallow, fat, grease”). See seep. Latin sāpō (“soap”) is a borrowing from the Germanic.
Probably an abbreviation of sodium pentothal.
Words formed from soap
- Aleppo soap
- bar soap
- bile soap
- body soap
- carbolic soap
- Castile soap
- curd soap
- dish soap
- docusoap
- don't drop the soap
- drop the soap
- facial soap
- ghar soap
- glass soap
- green soap
- hand soap
- handsoap
- hard soap
- hospital soap
- household soap
- Joe Soap
- know from a bar of soap
- laundry soap
- laurel soap
- liquid soap
- lithium soap
- mahogany soap
- marine soap
- Marseille soap
- Marseilles soap
- mercury soap
- metallic soap
- mountain soap
- Nabulsi soap
- nonsoap
- no soap
- oatmeal soap
- paste soap
- poor man's soap
- potassium soap
- quicksilver soap
- rock soap
- saddle soap
- saltwater soap
- sandsoap
- shave soap
- shaving soap
- soap acacia
- soapball
- soap bar
- soapbark
- soapberry
- soapbloom
- soap box
- soapbox
- soap boy
- soap brick
- soap bubble
- soapcurd
- soapdish
Phrases with soap
- soap up
- soap off
- soap pad
- soap pan
- soap bars
- soap dish
- soap down
- soap film
- soap foam
- soap pads
- soap pans
- soap ring
54 more phrasesFewer phrases
- soap scum
- soap suds
- soap test
- soap tree
- soft soap
- soap boxes
- soap films
- soap flake
- soap foams
- soap gourd
- soap night
- soap opera
- soap plant
- soap rings
- soap tests
- soap trees
- sugar soap
- soap bricks
- soap dishes
- soap dodger
- soap flakes
- soap nights
- soap operas
- soap plants
- soap shaker
- sodium soap
- sulfur soap
- Syrian soap
- Venice soap
- yellow soap
- soap acacias
- soap bubbles
- soap dodgers
- Spanish soap
- sulphur soap
- Windsor soap
- soap operatic
- soapless soap
- Venetian soap
- drops the soap
- soap dispenser
- soap dispensers
- dropped the soap
- dropping the soap
- stainless steel soap
- knew from a bar of soap
- known from a bar of soap
- knows from a bar of soap
- uglier than homemade soap
- knowing from a bar of soap
- wash one's brain out with soap
- washed one's brain out with soap
- washes one's brain out with soap
- washing one's brain out with soap
Words that rhyme with soap
Questions about soap
- What does soap mean?
- Soap means a metallic salt derived from a fatty acid, commonly used in cleaning products.
- What is soap in Hindi?
- Soap in Hindi is साबुन (sābun). See Soap meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is soap?
- Soap can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce soap?
- Soap is pronounced /soʊp/ (US).
- What is the plural of soap?
- The plural of soap is soaps.
Words near soap in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: soap (page history and authors); SOAP (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-soap.ogg, En-uk-soap.ogg.
Cite this entry: “soap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.