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PlainSpell

sap

/sæp/noun, verb

sap is spelled S-A-P: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.0 times per million words in written English, the 12,940th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, sap means “The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of sap is saps.

How many letters and syllables are in sap?

Letters3: S-A-P
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing4.0 times per million words; the 12,940th 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 sap?

Sap appears 4.0 times per million words in written English, the 12,940th 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 sap?

  • /sæp/

Sap 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-us-sap.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with sap?

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

Spelled with the same letters in another order: spa, pas, asp.

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 sap

  • saps plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • sapping participle, present
  • sapped participle, past

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

What does sap mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

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

  2. 2

    The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.

  3. 3

    Any juice.

  4. 4

    Vitality.

  5. 5

    slangA naive person; a simpleton.

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

  6. 6

    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.

  7. 7

    USslangA short wooden club; a leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.

    I risk my whole future, the hatred of the cops and Eddie Mars' gang. I dodge bullets and eat saps.

verb

  1. 1

    To exhaust the vitality of.

  2. 2

    To drain, suck or absorb sap from (a tree, etc.).

  3. 3

    To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.

  4. 4

    To gradually drain (someone's energy or vitality).

    to sap one’s conscience

  5. 5

    To pierce with saps.

  6. 6

    To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.

  7. 7

    To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps.

  8. 8

    slangTo strike with a sap (with a blackjack).

    [A]s he passes the mouth of a narrow alley two men step out quickly. One of them saps Marlowe expertly – they drag him out of sight.

noun

as SAP
  1. 1

    UKInitialism of statutory adoption pay, payments made by an employer to an employee who is absent from work after the adoption of a child.

  2. 2

    USInitialism of special access program.

  3. 3

    Abbreviation of second audio program.

  4. 4

    Initialism of structural adjustment program.

  5. 5

    Initialism of speech act participant.

  6. 6

    Initialism of superabsorbent polymer.

  7. 7

    Initialism of superabsorbent powder, made of superabsorbent polymer.

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

Sap in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsève (juice of plant), naïf, nigaud (slang: naive person), saper, miner (undermine), sape (narrow ditch or trench)
GermanSaft (juice of plant), Einfaltspinsel, Heulsuse, Simpel (slang: naive person), Mantelholz, Splint (sapwood of a tree)
Portugueseseiva (juice of plant), socavar (undermine)
Spanishsavia (juice of plant), simplón (slang: naive person), zapar, socavar (undermine), albura (sapwood of a tree)

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 sap come from?

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.

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

What to look up after sap