Word.ws English Dictionary

strapped

strapped is the simple past and past participle of strap.

Adjective

strapped (not comparable)

  1. (in-compounds, sometimes) Having a strap or straps.
    • The pregnant woman should wear a wide-strapped bra that supports the breasts without causing nipple pressure.2002, Caroline Bunker Rosdahl, Mary T. Kowalski, Textbook of Basic Nursing, page 917
  2. (informal) Muscular.
    Synonyms:
    ripped
  3. (slang) Armed; carrying a weapon.
    • Punched him in his belly and he gave him a slap, / But little did he know the lil' boy was strapped, / The kid pulled out a gun, he said "Why did ya hit me?" / The barrel was set straight for the cop's kidney1989 April 4, Slick Rick, “Children's Story”, in The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
    • I ain't gonna be out here strapped.2006 October 15, “Margin of Error” (43:48 from the start), in The Wire, season 4, episode 6 (television production), spoken by Omar Little (Michael K. Williams), via HBO
  4. (slang) Poor; broke.
    • Families struggling to meet mortgage payments or pay for health care can easily find themselves too strapped to take advantage of school meals, even though they are a bargain.2010 January 4, Janet Poppendieck, Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, Univ of California Press, →ISBN, page 9

Meaning of strap

Verb

strap (third-person singular simple present straps, present participle strapping, simple past and past participle strapped)

  1. (transitive) To beat or chastise with a strap; to whip, to lash.
  2. (transitive) To fasten or bind with a strap.
    • I strapped my son into the back seat.
  3. (transitive) To sharpen by rubbing on a strap; to strop.
    • to strap a razor
  4. (transitive) To slap or stroke the muscled areas of a horse with a cloth or pad, a form of massage meant to improve muscle tone.

See all 19 meanings of strap

Synonyms of strapped

Words formed from strapped

Phrases with strapped

Questions about strapped

What does strapped mean?
Strapped means having a strap or straps.
What is strapped the simple past and past participle of?
Strapped is the simple past and past participle of strap.
What part of speech is strapped?
Strapped is an adjective.

Words near strapped in the dictionary

  1. strappado
  2. strappadoed
  3. strappadoes
  4. strappadoing
  5. strappados
  6. strapped
  7. strapped for cash
  8. strapped for money
  9. strapped in
  10. strapped on
  11. strapped on a pair

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: strapped (page history and authors); strap (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-au-strapped.ogg.

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