Sap

Table of contents

1 English 1.1 Etymology 1 1.1.1 Noun 1.1.2 Translations 1.1.3 Derived expressions 1.2 Etymology 2 1.2.1 Transitive verb 1.2.2 Intransitive verb 1.2.3 Noun 1.2.4 Derived expressions 2 Dutch 2.1 Noun 3 Volapük 3.1 noun

English

Etymology 1

Anglo Saxon sæp ; akin to Old High German saf , German saft , Icelandic safi ; of uncertain origin; possibly akin to Latin sapere to taste, to be wise, sapa must or new wine boiled thick. Compare sapid , sapient

Noun

1. The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition. The ascending is the crude sap , the assimilation of which takes place in the leaves, when it becomes the elaborated sap suited to the growth of the plant.
2. The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
3. (Slang): A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop.

Translations

• Dutch: sap n
• French: sève f
• German: Saft m
• Interlingua: succo
• Italian: linfa
• Spanish: savia

Derived expressions

• Sap ball, (Botany): any large fungus of the genus Polyporus
• Sap green: a dull light green pigment prepared from the juice of the ripe berries of the Rhamnus catharticus, or buckthorn. It is used especially by water-color artists
• Sap rot: the dry rot. See under dry
• Sap sucker, (Zoölogy): any one of several species of small American woodpeckers of the genus Sphyrapicus , especially the yellow-bellied woodpecker Sphyrapicus varius of the Eastern United States. They are so named because they puncture the bark of trees and feed upon the sap. The name is loosely applied to other woodpeckers
• Sap tube, (Botany): a vessel that conveys sap

Etymology 2

French saper (compare Spanish zapar , Italian zapare , from sape a sort of scythe, Late Latin sappa a sort of mattock

Transitive verb

Imperfect and past participle: sapped
Present participle: Sapping

1. To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.

   Quotations

   • Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods, / Their houses fell upon their household gods. - John Dryden

2. (Military): To pierce with saps.
3. To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.

   Quotations

   • Ring out the grief that saps the mind. - Alfred Tennyson

Intransitive verb

1. To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps - W. P. Craighill

   Quotations

   • Both assaults carried on by sapping. - The Tatler

Noun

1. (Military): 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.

Derived expressions

• Sap fagot, (Military): a fascine about three feet long, used in sapping, to close the crevices between the gabions before the parapet is made
• Sap roller, (Military): a large gabion, six or seven feet long, filled with fascines, which the sapper sometimes rolls along before him for protection from the fire of an enemy

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Dutch

Noun

sap n

1. sap
2. juice

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Volapük

sap

noun

1. wisdom