Skip to main content
PlainSpell

pap

/pæp/noun, adjective, verb

pap is spelled P-A-P: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,101st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, pap means “Food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of pap is paps.

How many letters and syllables are in pap?

Letters3: P-A-P
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1.9 times per million words; the 20,101st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is pap?

Pap appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,101st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce pap?

  • /pæp/

As an adjective (“Weak, feeble; lacking substance”): /pap/, /pæp/.

Pap has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-pap.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with pap?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as pap.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: app.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of pap

  • paps plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • papping participle, present
  • papped participle, past
  • more pap comparative
  • most pap superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does pap mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    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.

  2. 2

    colloquialPablum or nonsense.

  3. 3

    Porridge.

    Pap and wors are traditionally eaten at a braai.

  4. 4

    A fermented cereal pudding made from corn, sorghum, or millet

  5. 5

    derogatoryinformalSupport from official patronage.

    Treasury pap

  6. 6

    The pulp of fruit.

  7. 7

    archaicA female breast or nipple.

  8. 8

    archaicA man's breast.

  9. 9

    A rounded, nipple-like hill or peak.

  10. 10

    informalPa; father.

  11. 11

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

  12. 12

    informalClipping of paparazzo.

adjective

  1. 1

    slangWeak, feeble; lacking substance.

  2. 2

    slangSpineless, wet, without character.

    He is so pap and boring.

  3. 3

    slangFlat.

    I got a puncture and the wheel went pap.

verb

  1. 1

    informalTo take a surreptitious photograph of (someone, especially a celebrity) without their consent.

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

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo feed with pap.

  3. 3

    Alternative letter-case form of PAP (“post a picture”).

noun

as PAP
  1. 1

    polyfluoroalkyl phosphate ester

  2. 2

    Initialism of password authentication protocol.

  3. 3

    Abbreviation of past active participle.

  4. 4

    Abbreviation of present active participle.

  5. 5

    Initialism of principle of alternate possibilities.

  6. 6

    Initialism of prostatic acid phosphatase.

  7. 7

    Initialism of participatory anthropic principle.

  8. 8

    Acronym of positive airway pressure.

verb

as PAP
  1. 1

    Post a picture.

noun

as Pap
  1. 1

    Ellipsis of Pap smear.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Pap in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense soft food:

LanguageWords
Frenchpurée
GermanBrei
Portuguesepapa, papinha
Spanishpapilla

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does pap come from?

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.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after pap