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pap

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Pronunciation

pap1 nipple, breast

Etymology

The word for the breast or nipple is inherited from Middle English pappe,[2][3][4] of uncertain origin.[5] The OED, the American Heritage Dictionary and the MED take it as perhaps or probably borrowed from Latin papilla (“nipple”);[5][6][2] Etymonline, Hoad and Klein think it more likely to come from Scandinavian,[3][4][7] although no Scandinavian form is recorded until much later: compare Swedish pappe, Norwegian pappe and Danish papa in regional use.[5][4] The OED also allows an imitative formation within Middle English.[5] Hoad traces the word to an imitative base Proto-Indo-European *pap- expressing the noise of sucking, and Klein and Etymonline to an imitative base meaning "to swell",[4][7][3] the source also of papula (“swelling, pimple”) and of Lithuanian pāpas (“nipple”).[7][3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A woman's breast: about 1175, in the Ormulum,[5][9] late 12th century in Etymonline, first in writing from the North and the Midlands.[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English pappe was the ordinary word for a woman's breast or nipple, and it was also used of a man's breast.[2][5] From before 1398 it meant an animal's teat.[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the nipple; the dug sucked", with quotations from Spenser and Shakespeare.[10] From 1613 the word was applied to a rounded hill that looks like a breast, as in the Paps of Jura in Scotland,[5][8] and in Scots the pap of the halse was the uvula (1788).[5] It is now archaic or dialectal: the OED records it in Scotland, northern England, Ireland and the American Midland,[5] and the English Dialect Dictionary found it across Scotland, Ireland and England for a breast or teat and for a mother's milk.[11]

Timeline

  • c. 1175 – a woman's breast or nipple.[5]
  • before 1398 – the teat of a female animal.[5]
  • before 1425 – a man's nipple or breast.[5]
  • before 1450 – a small round swelling, a pimple (obsolete by 1774).[5]
  • 1613 – a hill shaped like a breast.[5]
  • 1788 – in Scots, the uvula.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (archaic or dialect) A nipple or teat; a breast.[8][5][12]
  2. Something shaped like a nipple, especially a rounded hill or one of a pair of such hills.[8][5]
  3. (obsolete, 1450–1774) A small round swelling; a pimple.[5][12]

pap2 soft food

Etymology

The word for soft food is of uncertain origin.[5] Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary take it as borrowed from Old French papa (“watered gruel”),[13][6] and Etymonline as pape and Medieval Latin papo;[3] Barnhart thinks it was probably also borrowed directly from Medieval Latin pappa.[13] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English prefer Middle Low German pappe and Middle Dutch pappe.[4][12][14] All go back to Latin pappa (“food”), a word of children's language,[3][13][4][7] and pappō (“to eat”).[4][12] The OED compares pap, Dutch pap, Middle High German pappe, German Pappe, Spanish papa, Portuguese papa and Italian pappa, and notes that the word may have arisen separately in more than one language, perhaps imitating the sound of an infant opening and shutting its lips, or from the syllable “pa” of early babbling.[5] Klein links it with papa and compares pamper.[7] The South African sense, maize porridge, is from Afrikaans pap, which comes from Dutch.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Soft or semi-liquid food: 1286 in the OED, from a farming record.[5] Etymonline and Barnhart date it to the late 14th century, before 1399.[3][13]

Semantic evolution

Pap was food for babies and invalids, bread or meal softened in milk or water.[5][8] From 1435 the word was used of any soft or pulpy mass, and for a time (1594–1761) of the pulp of an apple.[5] The figurative sense, something easy to take in but of little value, is recorded from 1548, in Udall's translation of Erasmus; at first it could be neutral, but it is now disparaging.[5][13][3] In 19th-century American politics pap was the favours and posts handed out through patronage (1825).[5][8] The phrase pap with a hatchet, harsh treatment where gentle treatment was expected, was used from 1579 to 1719.[5] In South Africa, West Africa and the Caribbean pap is porridge, especially of maize (1858),[5][15] and the Afrikaans adjective pap, soft, weak, was taken into South African English in the 20th century.[5][16]

Timeline

  • 1286 – soft or semi-liquid food for babies or invalids.[5]
  • before 1400 – verb, to feed with pap (obsolete by 1878).[5]
  • 1435 – any soft, pulpy mass.[5]
  • 1548 – figurative, something easy to take in but of little worth.[5][13]
  • 1825 – in the United States, political patronage.[5]
  • 1858 – porridge, especially of maize meal, in South Africa.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Soft or semi-liquid food, such as bread softened in milk, for infants or invalids.[15][8][5]
  2. Any soft or pulpy substance; a mash or paste.[8][5]
  3. Reading matter, entertainment or ideas that are easy to take in but trivial or oversimplified: the usual pap of afternoon television.[15][8][5]
  4. (South Africa, West Africa and the Caribbean) Porridge, especially of maize meal.[15][5]
  5. (US, colloquial) Political patronage: posts and favours handed out by those in power.[8][5]

Word family

  • paplike
  • pappy
  • papilla
  • papule
  • papa
  • pabulum
  • pamper

Usage notes

Several shorter words are spelled the same.[5] Pap for "father" is an American shortening of papa or a form of pop, recorded from 1844.[5][3][12] Pap for a press photographer, with the verb "to photograph a celebrity", is a shortening of paparazzo, recorded from 1988 and 1991.[5][16] In the Pap smear or Pap test (1963) it is short for the name Papanicolaou.[5]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  12. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com