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sap

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Ayto counts three words spelled sap: the plant juice, the verb "to undermine", and the slang word for a fool, which he takes from the first.[1]

Pronunciation

sap1 plant juice

Etymology

The plant juice is inherited from Middle English sap, also zep,[3] inherited from Old English sæp,[4][5][6][7] inherited from Proto-West Germanic *sap (“sap, juice”),[2] which Etymonline and Barnhart give as Proto-Germanic *sapam.[5][3] It is related to Middle Low German sap, Middle Dutch sap, Dutch sap and Old High German saf, whose descendant German Saft (“juice”) has an added -t,[4][5][8] and to Old Norse safi (“sap”).[4][8][9] Etymonline and Klein trace it to Proto-Indo-European *sab- (“juice, fluid; to taste”),[5][10] the source also of Sanskrit सबर् (sabar, “sap, milk, nectar”);[5][10][2] the OED and Klein think it may be cognate with Latin sapa (“must boiled thick”) and sapiō (“to taste”),[4][10] and Latin sapa, influenced by the Germanic word, became French sève (“sap”).[4][11] The OED rejects the idea that the Germanic word was borrowed from Latin sapa.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The vital juice that circulates in plants: in Old English, where Barnhart dates the word to about 750 and the OED's first quotation is from the poem Christ III.[3][4] In Middle English it appears as zep in the Ayenbite of Inwyt (1340) and as sap from 1377.[3]

Semantic evolution

The word was soon used for the sapwood of a tree (Chaucer's translation of Boethius, about 1374)[4] and, from 1526, figuratively for vigour or vitality.[4][8] For a time it could also mean any juice (1527–1623) and even ear-wax (about 1440).[4] The verb, to drain of sap, is recorded from 1725.[4][5][6] The slang sap, a fool, is recorded from 1793 in Etymonline and Green's;[5][12] the OED's first quotation is from Scott's Guy Mannering (1815).[4] The OED takes it as short for sapskull,[4] and Ayto and the Oxford Dictionary of English explain that compound as a head of soft sapwood;[1][13] Barnhart adds that it may partly come from sappy,[3] while Etymonline and Green's see the image of someone "green", full of sap, and Etymonline also mentions a dialect sense "mush, sop".[5][12] The American slang sap, a club or blackjack (1899, in Josiah Flynt's Tramping with Tramps), is taken as short for sapling, from which such clubs were first cut;[4][14][12][13][5] the verb, to hit with a sap, follows in 1926.[4][5] The American Heritage Dictionary puts the verb sense "to weaken, exhaust" under this word, as partly from sap2 understood as draining the sap;[14] most other dictionaries derive that sense from the verb meaning to undermine.[3][13][4]

Timeline

  • c. 750 – Old English sæp.[3]
  • c. 1374 – sapwood.[4]
  • c. 1440 – ear-wax (obsolete).[4]
  • 1526 – vigour, vitality.[4]
  • 1527 – any juice or fluid (obsolete by 1623).[4]
  • 1725 – verb, to drain of sap.[4][6]
  • 1793 – a fool, a simpleton.[5][12]
  • 1899 – a club or blackjack.[4][5]
  • 1926 – verb, to hit with a sap.[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The watery fluid that circulates through a plant, carrying nutrients and the products of photosynthesis.[15][6][4]
  2. Vigour or vitality: the sap of youth.[15][8]
  3. Sapwood.[15][4]
  4. (slang) A gullible or foolish person: Only a sap would believe that story.[15][4]
  5. (US slang) A short club or blackjack.[4][14]

Verb

  1. To drain of sap; to remove the sapwood from a log.[6][4]
  2. (slang) To hit or knock out with a sap.[6][4]

Word family

  • sapless
  • saplessness
  • saphead
  • sapheaded
  • sapling
  • sappy
  • sapsucker
  • pinesap
  • sapwood

sap2 undermine; trench

Etymology

The verb meaning to undermine is borrowed from Middle French saper, earlier sapper,[4][3][6] from sappe (“spade”),[3][5] and the noun comes partly from that French noun, partly Italian zappa (“spade, mattock, hoe”);[4][3][8] the Italian verb is zappare (“to dig with a hoe”).[14][3] Both go back to Late Latin sappa (“spade, mattock”), recorded in the 6th century,[4][11][3] also the source of Spanish zapa (“spade”).[5][4] Its further origin is unknown.[5][14][11] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English suggest an Arabic source meaning "underground passage" or "to probe a wound",[8][13] and Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com compare the dialect word Old Italian zappo (“goat”).[6][16]

Earliest recorded meaning

The process of undermining a wall or fortification: 1591, in the correspondence of Sir Henry Unton.[4][6][3] The verb, to dig a covered trench towards an enemy position, is first recorded in Florio's Italian–English dictionary A Worlde of Wordes (1598).[4][3]

Semantic evolution

In siege warfare a sap was a covered trench by which attackers approached a fortress under fire (1642).[4][3][5] From 1652 the verb was used of digging under the foundations of a wall, and of natural forces that undermine something;[4][3][5] Addison used it of a metaphorical foundation in 1711.[4][3] The sense "to weaken or destroy gradually", used of health, strength or courage, follows in 1755.[4][3] It is often taken as a figurative "draining of sap", but the Oxford dictionaries derive it from this verb;[13][17] Barnhart, Etymonline and Ayto think it was influenced by sap1,[3][5][1] and the American Heritage Dictionary takes it as partly from that word.[14] A soldier who dug saps was a sapper (1626).[3] In English school slang to sap was to study hard (1830) and a sap a hard-working pupil (1798);[4][12] the OED takes this as a figurative use of the digging verb,[4] while Green's derives it from Latin sapiēns (“wise”).[12]

Timeline

  • 1566 – sap, a kind of spade (obsolete by 1598).[4]
  • 1591 – the process of undermining a fortification.[4][6]
  • 1598 – verb, to dig a sap.[4][3]
  • 1642 – a covered trench for approaching a besieged place.[4][3]
  • 1652 – verb, to undermine the foundations of a wall.[4][3]
  • 1711 – figuratively, to undermine.[4][3]
  • 1748 – noun, a stealthy method of attack or destruction.[4]
  • 1755 – verb, to weaken or exhaust gradually.[4][3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To weaken or exhaust gradually: The long climb sapped her strength.[6][4]
  2. To undermine a wall or other structure by digging under it, or by wearing away its foundations.[6][4]
  3. To dig a sap, or to approach a fortified place by saps.[6][4]

Noun

  1. A covered trench dug towards a besieged place, by which attackers can approach under fire.[6][4][8]
  2. The act of undermining something, especially by stealthy or gradual means.[6][4]

Word family

  • sapper
  • unsapped

References

  1. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ 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 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e f Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ a b c d e Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  17. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press