pap

Clipping of English Papiamento or Papiamentu Papiamento.

pap

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Papiamentu.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Papiamentu terms

• IPA^(key): /pæp/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æp

From Middle English pap. Related to Middle Low German pappe, Dutch pap, German Pappe (“pap, porridge; wheatpaste; cardboard”), Old French papa/pape, Latin pappa, Bulgarian папам (papam, “to eat”) and Serbo-Croatian папати/papati (“to eat”), among others. The relationships between these words are difficult to reconstruct. The Germanic word is either a borrowing from Latin or, perhaps more probably, an independent formation in baby-talk.

pap (countable and uncountable, plural paps)

1. (uncountable) Food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children.

   Pap can be made from bread boiled in milk or water.

3. (uncountable, colloquial) Pablum or nonsense.
4. (South Africa) Porridge.

   Pap and wors are traditionally eaten at a braai.

5. (Nigeria, West Africa) A fermented cereal pudding made from corn, sorghum, or millet
6. (informal, derogatory) Support from official patronage.

   Treasury pap

7. The pulp of fruit.
   • 1633, James Hart, The Diet of the Diseased:

     I hold it not amisse to take Pills in the pap of a rosted apple.

   • 1761, [Laurence Sterne], chapter XVI, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume III, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], →OCLC, page 72:

     A child's head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple.

pap (third-person singular simple present paps, present participle papping, simple past and past participle papped)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To feed with pap.
   • c. 1619–1623, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Custome of the Countrey”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     But I'll so pap him up - nothing too dear for him : What a sweet scent he has !

From Middle English pappe, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Latin papilla; or perhaps compare Old Swedish papp (“breast, nipple”), from Proto-Germanic *pap- (“nipple”), of imitative origin, or from Proto-Indo-European *pap- (“pock mark, nipple”); Swedish dialectal papp, pappe, Swedish patt, Danish patte, North Frisian pap, pape, papke (“breast, pap”).

pap (plural paps)

1. (archaic) A female breast or nipple. [from 13th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     But th'other rather higher did arise, / And her two lilly paps aloft displayd, / And all, that might his melting hart entise / To her delights, she vnto him bewrayd […]

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     they doe not onely weare jewels at their noses, in their lip and cheekes, and in their toes, but also big wedges of gold through their paps [translating tetins] and buttocks […].

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 11:27:

     And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.

   • 1907, Aleister Crowley, “Stone of the Philosophers Which Is Hidden in the Mountain of Abiegnus”, in Konx Om Pax, page 87:

     I took the dagger out and kissed it. / Like a cat’s tongue that daintily laps, / I slipped it in between her paps.

2. (now rare, archaic) A man's breast. [from 15th c.]
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 13, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     Adrianus the Emperour made his Physition to marke and take the just compasse of the mortall place about his pap, that so his aime might not faile him, to whom he had given charge to kill him.

3. A rounded, nipple-like hill or peak.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     the paps of Jura

Ellipsis of Pap smear.

pap (plural paps)

1. Alternative letter-case form of Pap (“Pap smear”).

From Afrikaans pap (“porridge”).^[1] Cognate with etymology 1.

• (General South African) IPA^(key): /pap/

pap (comparative more pap, superlative most pap)

1. (South Africa, slang) Weak, feeble; lacking substance.
   • 1975, Sheila Roberts, Outside Life's Feast: Short Stories, Johannesburg: Ad. Donker, →ISBN, page 27:

     His chest hangs like soft tits in his vest. He is pap. I could easily hit him. I could kill him if I wanted to.

2. (South Africa, slang) Spineless, wet, without character.

   He is so pap and boring.

3. (South Africa, slang) Flat.

   I got a puncture and the wheel went pap.

Clipping of paparazzo.

pap (plural paps)

1. (informal) Clipping of paparazzo.
   • 2015, “Justin Bieber's top 10's worst moments”, in OK! Magazine:

     As he made his way from the London hotel to his car, the singer threatened to beat up a pap who got in his way.

   • 2015, Mira Bailee, Broken Strings:

     We turn back onto the main road and I'm relieved to not see any paps. They've got to be somewhere though. They don't just leave.

   • 2023 January 17, Tina Brown, “Spare by Prince Harry review – magical thinking in Montecito”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     The only aspect of his mother’s death that he finds unforgettable is the identity of those who caused it: the press and the paps, variously referred to as ghouls, pustules, dogs, weasels, idiots and sadists, who after “torturing” his mother “would come for me”.

pap (third-person singular simple present paps, present participle papping, simple past and past participle papped)

1. (informal, usually passive voice) To take a surreptitious photograph of (someone, especially a celebrity) without their consent.

   Look, that pop star’s been papped in her bikini again!

   • 2023 June 16, Daisy Jones, “Cool, sexy and stinking of smoke: why are TV dramas giving cigarettes a comeback?”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     The star of Netflix’s Wednesday, 20-year-old Jenna Ortega (another Gen Z actor) was recently papped holding an iPhone and chuffing on a straight cigarette (the fact that this was a pap photo is all the more throwback).

   • 2025 October 17, Marina Hyde, “Punish Prince Andrew? This is no meritocracy, I’m afraid – you get the royal family you didn’t vote for”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     We know everyone else knew he was a Tier 1 sex offender because when the pair got papped on a walk in Central Park, the New York Post published the picture with a front page headline even Andrew could understand: “PRINCE & PERV”.

Compare pa, papa, pop.

pap (plural paps)

1. (informal) Pa; father.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:father

   • 1884, Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

     Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drowned, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair—which was all like pap—but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all.

pap (third-person singular simple present paps, present participle papping, simple past and past participle papped)

1. (Internet slang, text messaging) Alternative letter-case form of PAP (“post a picture”).

• → Indonesian: pap

• APP, App, PPA, app, app.

From Dutch pap, from Middle Dutch pappe.

• IPA^(key): /pap/

• Audio:

  (file)

pap (uncountable)

1. porridge

• → Sotho: papa
• → Zulu: í-pápa

• 2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.

pap (plural pap dem, quantified pap)

1. porridge

Inherited from Latin pappus, itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πάππος(pàppos).

pap m (plural pachi or pãpãnj/pãpenj)

1. grandfather
2. ancestor, forefather
3. old man

• (grandfather): ghiush, tot
• (old man): mosh, aush, bitãrnu

• babã
• omã

Deverbal from papar.

pap m (plural paps)

1. crop, craw

   Synonym: gavatx

2. double chin

   Synonym: papada

3. belly

   Synonym: panxa

• papada

• “pap”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

From German Pappe, from Middle High German pappe (“porridge, mush”), a common nursery word for "porridge", compare Upper German Papp, English pap, Latin pappa, pāpa (“an infant's cry for food”).

• IPA^(key): [ˈpʰɑb̥]

pap n (singular definite pappet, plural indefinite papper)

1. cardboard

• IPA^(key): /pɑp/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pap
• Rhymes: -ɑp

From Middle Dutch pappe.

pap m (plural pappen, diminutive papje n)

1. mush
2. porridge

• Afrikaans: pap
  • → Sotho: papa
  • → Zulu: í-pápa
• Berbice Creole Dutch: pap
• Jersey Dutch: pap
• → Aukan: papa
• → Papiamentu: papa
• → Saramaccan: pápa

Shorter form of papa, usually considered more grown-up, whereas papa is considered rather child-like.

pap m (uncountable, diminutive paps n)

1. (colloquial) pa, dad

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

pap

1. inflection of pappen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

pap

1. cheek

• “pap”, in Kamus Digital Bahasa Enggano [Enggano-Indonesian-English dictionary] (in Indonesian), 2026

Borrowed from a Slavic (probably from a South Slavic) language. Compare Bulgarian поп (pop), Serbo-Croatian pop, Russian поп (pop).^[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈpɒp]
• Rhymes: -ɒp

pap (plural papok)

1. priest (in Catholic terminology)

• pap in Géza Bárczi, László Országh, et al., editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN.

• PAP

Borrowed from English pap (sense 7, but likely also from sense 5).

• IPA^(key): /pap/

pap (plural pap-pap)

1. (slang) a picture obtained as a result of pap
   • (from sense 4 of the verb) (watch the trailer on Instagram, which contains the scene)
     2020, Agung Sentausa, director, Pindah Planet!!!, spoken by Tia, Yayasan Kampung Halaman:

     Siapa yang minta pap? Jangan, jangan pernah kasih pap ke siapapun.

     Who asked for a pap (nude)? Don't, don't ever give a pap to anyone.

pap

1. (Internet slang, usually imperative) to take/send/post a picture (especially a photograph), usually as proof of something
2. (Internet slang, usually imperative) to take/send/post a picture of oneself with their background location visible and/or to take/send/post a picture of a location (in which one is currently in), especially (as proof) to show where one currently is
3. (slang) to take a picture of something
4. (slang) to take/send a picture of oneself, especially of their sexual body parts; to send a nude
5. (slang, usually active voice) to take a picture of someone, usually surreptitiously and without their consent

• Unlike in English (sense 7 and/or sense 5), none of the meanings above are exclusive to text messaging.

• papp, pape, pappe

Borrowed from Old French papa and Medieval Latin papo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpap(ə)/

pap (uncountable)

1. A gruel or porridge; baby food

• English: pap
• ⇒ Yola: pappee

• “pap, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

pap

1. to swim

• IPA^(key): /ˈpap/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ap
• Syllabification: pap
• Homophones: pab, PAP

pap f

1. genitive plural of papa

• IPA^(key): [pap]

pap

1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of păpa

pap

1. romanization of 𒉽 (pap)

pap (c)

1. popcorn