Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word rap. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word rap, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say rap in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word rap you have here. The definition of the word rap will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofrap, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
The teacher sat at one end of the bench, with a meek little fellow by his side. When the others were disorderly, this young martyr received a rap; intended, probably, as a sample of what the rest might expect, if they didn't amend.
He walked softly up the sanded path, tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza, and rapped at the front door, not too loudly, lest this too might attract the attention of the man across the street. There was no response to his rap. He put his ear to the door and heard voices within, and the muffled sound of footsteps. After a moment he rapped again, a little louder than before.
1950 March, Eric S. Tonks, “The Whitacre—Hampton-in-Arden Line, L.M.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 187:
The author (obviously a naturalist of no mean order) received an official rap over the knuckles for trespassing, and for encouraging others to do so. Evidently the instigator of this reprimand had not visited the railway in blackberry time!
(slang, with definite article) The blame for something.
He walked softly up the sanded path, tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza, and rapped at the front door, not too loudly, lest this too might attract the attention of the man across the street. There was no response to his rap. He put his ear to the door and heard voices within, and the muffled sound of footsteps. After a moment he rapped again, a little louder than before.
(transitive,dated) To strike with a quick blow; to knock on.
2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in the Guardian:
But the purported rise in violent videos online has led some MPs to campaign for courts to have more power to remove or block material on YouTube. The Labour MP Heidi Alexander said she was appalled after a constituent was robbed at knifepoint, and the attackers could be found brandishing weapons and rapping about gang violence online.
Louie said, "I dig this Theo. I'm gonna learn Swahili and rap with him."
1980 April 12, Mike Sassin, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 19:
Got your address from NGTF, I could dig some mail and friends. I'll be released in July of '80, am 24, and like chess, body building, people and of course letters. Nice rapping to you.
Synonyms
(strike something sharply with one's knuckles):knock, noogie
A lea or skein of yarn that forms the standard length taken from the reel, 80 yards of worsted or 120 yards of silk or cotton.
1762, The Statutes at Large (Great Britain), page 386:
[…] and that every hank or skein that shall be used as a binder to tie up or bind together any pound or parcel of yarn shall contain the same number of threads in a rap or lea, and the same number of raps or leas as the other hanks or skeins in the said pound or parcel.
1881, Alfred Spitzli, A Manual for Managers, Designers, Weavers, and All Others, page 22:
At each rap the reel was moved slightly to one side, so that the next rap was wound separately, and so on until seven raps had been made, then the seven raps were made up into one hank, […]
1885, Thomas Rotherforth Ashenhurst, A practical treatise on weaving and designing of textile fabrics:
Thus, a rap may be reeled (of cotton or silk 120 yards, of worsted 80 yards), then as one rap is equal to one-seventh of a hank, 1000 grains will be equal to the one-seventh of a pound, so that whatever part of 1000 grains one rap weighs, or whatever number of raps are required to weigh1000 grains, that number of hanks will weigh one pound.
1888, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Manchester Meeting, 1887 on the Regulation of Wages by Means of Lists in the Cotton Industry., page 19:
The yarn rap reel is 1½ yard in circumference; 80 rounds or 120 yards make one rap; 7 raps or 840 yards one bank. In 1 lb. of cotton yarn there are 7,000 grains. When one rap weighs 1,000 grains, or seven raps 7,000 grains, the yarn is one hank to the pound, and when ten raps weigh 350 grains it is 28.57 hanks to the pound.
1913, How to Build, Equip and Operate a Cotton Mill in the United States, page 408:
Rule to find constant for beams: Multiply the number of yards in one rap by the number of ends in the beam, and by the number of raps on the beam and divide by 840.
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Scand., as Ice. hrapa, to rush headlong, cog. with Ger. raffen, to snatch.”)
Verb
rap (third-person singular simple presentraps, present participlerapping, simple past and past participlerappedorrapt)
Han var også tyveknægten, der ikke ejede andet end en skarpsleben lommekniv, nogle rappe fingre, en god portion vovemod og et frækt sindelag.
He was also the thief-boy, who owned nothing but a sharply-ground pocket-knife, some quick fingers, a large portion of daring and a mischievous disposition.
1 When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite, the corresponding "indefinite" form is used. 2 The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.
Etymology 4
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
As the word "rap" does not sit well in Finnish grammatic structure, the term räppi is widely used. Also the compound form rap-musiikki is quite common.
“rap”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03