Also 4 lappe. [f. LAP v.1]
1. Something that is lapped.
a. Liquid food for dogs. Also slang and dial., any weak beverage or thin liquid food (cf. CAT-LAP). b. slang. Drink, liquor in general.
a. 1567. Harman, Caveat, 83. Lap, butter milke or whey.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Lap, Pottage, Butter-milk, or Whey.
1728. [De Foe], Street-Robberies Consider’d, 33. Lap, Spoon-meat.
a. 1754. Fielding, Jon. Wild, I. xiv. As when their lap is finished, the cautious huntsman to their kennel gathers the nimble-footed hounds.
1781. P. Beckford, Hunting (1802), 50*. If your hounds are low in flesh, and have far to go to cover, they may all have a little thin lap again in the evening.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Lap, thin broth or porridge; weak tea, &c.
1886. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., s.v., ‘Call this here tay! I calls it lap.’
b. 1618. Hornby, Scourge Dronk. (1859), 17. Hee which will not take his lap downe free, Lap, so they terme it, such as dogs do vse.
1623. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wks. (1630), II. 29. They will … inforce mee to drinke … with such a deale of complementall oratory, as off with your Lap, Wind vp your Bottome [etc.].
a. 1625. Beaum. & Fl., Bonduca, I. ii. A pretty valiant fellow, Die for a little lap and lechery?
1641. Brome, Joviall Crew, II. Wks. 1873, III. 388. Here’s Pannum and Lap.
1725. New Cant. Dict., Lap … also strong Drink of any Sort.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxviii. The gentry … would have given baith lap and pannel to ony poor gypsey.
1865. Slang Dict., Lap, liquor, drink.
2. The action or an act of lapping; so much as may be taken up thus; a lick, smack, taste. Also fig.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. III. 37. What man þat loueþ mede … He shal lese for hure loue a lappe of trewe charite.
1820. Mrs. Piozzi, Lett., 9 June. Mr. Iveson will have a Lap of the Pellegrini Picture.
a. 1837. Beddoes, Sec. Brother, I. i. These veiny pipes hold a dog’s lap of blood.
1860. Holme Lee, Leg. Fairy Land, 77. He persunded them [two puppies] to take a lap at his breakfast.
3. A sound resembling that of lapping; e.g., that produced by wavelets on the beach.
1884. W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 43. Only the lap of the rippling wave Broke on the hush of their solitude.
1889. Amelia E. Barr, Feet of Clay, iv. 65. He could drift out with the tide, and in with the tide, and smoke and dream sonnets to the lazy whish and lap of the ocean.
