sap

CEFRB2

/sæp/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    Liquid carrying water and nutrients through a plant.

  2. 02

    verb

    To gradually weaken or reduce someone's strength or energy.

Examples

  • Poor sap. He can't tell when he's being taken advantage of.

  • The wise teacher knew about the sap.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
2

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Any juice.

  2. The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.

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

More examples

In context

  • Look at the sap mowing our lawn while we pretend our own lawnmower is broken.

  • He saps my energy.

  • to sap one’s conscience

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The extreme heat began to blank all the energy from the hikers on the trail.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English sap, from Old English sæp (“juice, sap”), from Proto-West Germanic *sap (“sap, juice”) (compare Dutch sap, German Saft, Icelandic safi), from Proto-Indo-European *sab-, *sap- (“to taste”) (compare Welsh syb-wydd (“fir”), Latin sapa (“must, new wine”), Russian со́пли (sópli, “snivel”), Old Armenian համ (ham, “taste”), Avestan 𐬬𐬌-𐬱𐬁𐬞𐬀 (vi-šāpa, “having poisonous juices”), Sanskrit सबर् (sabar, “juice, nectar”)). More at sage. sap (“naive person”) is a clipping of sapskull (literally “person with sap in their skull”).