SAP • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Sap

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noun

Sap n.

The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition. Note: 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.

The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.

A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop. (Slang)

Sap ball (Bot.), any large fungus of the genus Polyporus. See 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 (Zool.), 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 (Bot.), a vessel that conveys sap.

Sap n. (Mil.) 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.

Sap fagot (Mil.), a fascine about three feet long, used in sapping, to close the crevices between the gabions before the parapet is made.

Sap roller (Mil.), 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.

verb

Sap v. t. (past & past part. sapped; pres. part. sapping)

To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of. "Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods, Their houses fell upon their household gods."

(Mil.) To pierce with saps.

To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken. "Ring out the grief that saps the mind."

Sap v. i. To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps. "Both assaults are carried on by sapping."

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Etymology of 'Sap'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sap" Quotes from Famous Books

... uncle Hippias to town—a delightful companion! I said to him: 'We've had a fine Spring.' 'Ugh!' he answers, 'there's a time when you come to think the Spring old.' You should have heard how he trained out the 'old.' I felt something like decay in my sap just to hear him. In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our uncle Hippias has been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's guard ourselves there, and go and ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... delicious food; the long trunk makes poles for tents; the leaf-stalks make many kinds of basket and wicker work, walking-sticks and fans; the leaves themselves are made into bags and mats; and the fibers at the base of the leaf-stalks are twisted into cordage for tents and harness. The sap of the tree, drawn from a deep cut in the trunk near the top, after standing a few days, becomes a sweet and pleasant liquor. Cakes of the fruit pounded and kneaded together "so solid as to be cut with a hatchet," are carried by travelers ...

— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... social level. In a genuine Aristocracy, where they have endeavored to preserve a gulf-stream of noble blood in the midst of the plebeian Atlantic, and a man holds his distinction by the color of the bark on his family tree, and the kind of sap that circulates through it, there is no danger of any unpleasant mistakes. The hard palm of Labor may cross the gloved hand of Leisure, and nobody will suspect that the select is too familiar with the vulgar. Consequently, there ...

— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... Barum (Vol. ii., p. 21.).—As a conjecture, I would suggest the derivation of Sarum may have been this. Salisbury was as frequently written Sarisbury. The contracted form of this was Sap., the ordinary import of which is the termination of the Latin genitive plural rum. Thus an imperfectly educated clerk would be apt to read Sarum instead of Sarisburia; and the error would pass current, until ...

— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various

... hole, cutting down the 'face' and gradually burrowing a way across the danger zone. The advantage of this method is that the workers keep digging their way forward while all the time they are below ground and in the safety of the sap they dig. The disadvantage is that the narrow trench only allows one or two men to get at its end or 'face' to dig, and the work consequently takes time. Here it was urgent that the work be completed that night, because ...

— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

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