craps

1. 1
   noununcountableplural

   A gambling game of chance in which players throw dice, trying to make scores and avoid the losing throw called crap.

   He lost his whole paycheck shooting craps in Las Vegas.

   The casino added three new craps tables to its main floor.

   Note

   The dice game took its name from Louisiana Creole, where craps was a corruption of English crabs. It looks plural but names one game, and the idiomatic verb is shoot: in Peter B. Kyne's The Understanding Heart (1920), a man is told he is "a howling success at shooting craps." Play craps is correct as well, and both take the game without an article.

2. 2
   verbslang

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of crap.

   The neighbor's dog craps on our lawn, and nobody ever cleans it up.

   He swears he nearly craps his pants every time the plane hits turbulence.

   Note

   With a singular subject the verb works both with and without an object. On its own it is intransitive, as in the dog craps on the rug; with clothing as its object it means soiling it, as in he craps his pants. In Indian English it can also mean to bullshit someone. Every use is mildly vulgar slang, best kept to casual talk.

3. 3
   noun

   Plural of crap.

   He rolled three craps in a row and decided the dice were against him that night.

   The dog took two quick craps at the first rest stop on the trip.

   Note

   The plural counts single events: losing throws of 2, 3 or 12 at the dice table, or, in mildly vulgar slang, separate acts of defecation. The junk, nonsense and feces meanings are usually uncountable and seldom take the -s. The same spelling also names the dice game and the verb's present form, so the sentence around it decides which is meant.

4. 4
   nounslangvulgaruncountable

   Diarrhea; always used with the before it.

   Something at that buffet gave me the craps for two days.

   He missed the final exam because he had a bad case of the craps.

   Similarruns

   Note

   The plural of crap is pressed into service here as the name of an ailment, and the result is somewhat vulgar slang: fine among friends, out of place in a doctor's office or in writing. Where a neutral word is needed, diarrhea is the one to use; the craps belongs only where crap itself would be welcome.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4