rap

USRAP/ɹæp/

Pluralraps (some meanings)

20 meanings of rap

1
noununcountable
A genre of popular music in which rhymed lyrics are spoken rhythmically over a beat.
He grew up listening to rap and later started writing his own verses.
Rap dominated the charts throughout the decade.
Similarhip-hop
Note
The genre name is uncountable: you listen to rap, not to a rap. Once it takes an article it has become a single song or verse, and the person performing it is doing the verb of performance. Leave the article off when you mean the music as a whole: she grew up on rap, rap dominated the charts.
2
verbtransitive or intransitive
To perform lyrics rhythmically over a beat in the style of rap music.
She learned to rap by copying her favorite artists.
He rapped about growing up in his neighborhood.
Note
The verb of performance works with or without an object. Someone can simply start to rap, or rap a song to a girlfriend. Keep it apart from the verb for casual talk, which is informal and takes with. You rap with a friend, but you rap a verse for an audience.
3
nouncountable or uncountable
A song, verse, or single performance delivered in the style of rap music.
He performed a rap he had written about his hometown.
Each contestant prepared a short rap for the final round.
Similarsong, verse
4
nouncountable
A sharp blow delivered with something hard.
A rap on the window made her jump.
The teacher gave the desk a quick rap to get attention.
Similarknock, tap, bang, thump
Note
The blow itself, with Norse roots: Middle English rap, borrowed from North Germanic and related to Danish rap, "a tap, smart, blow," and Swedish rapp, "a blow, lash, crack." A rap is often heard as much as felt. Chesnutt's caller in The House Behind the Cedars (1900) gets "no response to his rap." A rap over the knuckles, as Railway Magazine used it in 1950, is a reprimand, not a blow.
5
verbintransitive
To strike a surface sharply with the knuckles; to knock.
Visitors should rap firmly on the front door.
He rapped at the window to get her attention.
Similarknock, tap, bang, pound
Note
The intransitive verb needs a preposition to reach its target: you rap at a door or rap on a window. Poe's "rapping, rapping at my chamber door" in The Raven (1845) is the classic sound of it, and Chesnutt's caller "rapped at the front door." Dropping the preposition to rap the door gives the dated transitive use.
6
nounslangcountable or uncountablewith the
The blame for something, especially a wrongdoing one person is held responsible for.
She took the rap for the whole team's failure.
He refused to take the rap for a decision he never made.
Similarblame
Note
Slang that almost always comes with the: you take the rap, not a rap. Take is its usual verb, and take the fall is a close twin. The phrase often implies blame that should have landed on someone else, as when one person acts irresponsibly and another is expected to answer for it. In formal writing, plain blame is the safer word.
7
nouncolloquialcountable or uncountable
A casual, informal talk or chat.
They sat on the porch and had a long rap about old times.
He enjoyed a friendly rap with the regulars at the bar.
Similarchat, talk, conversation
Note
In the late 1970s the noun could name an organized event. Gay Community News in 1979 announces a "bisexuality rap" with an address, a start time and a topic for discussion. So a rap may be a planned group conversation as well as a chat between friends. It pairs naturally with the verb for talking casually.
8
verbcolloquialintransitive
To talk casually with someone; to chat.
The two friends would rap late into the night.
He rapped with the crew during the lunch break.
Similarchat, talk, converse, gab
Note
Casual talk whose partner is named with with. Bellow's Louie in Humboldt's Gift (1976) plans to "learn Swahili and rap with him." A 1980 personal ad in Gay Community News signs off "Nice rapping to you," and Anthony Burgess, in Time for a Tiger (1956), lets whole languages rap. The matching noun is the casual talk.
9
nounslangcountable
A criminal charge brought against someone, whether or not it results in a conviction.
He was facing a robbery rap that could put him away for years.
The witness's testimony got her off the assault rap.
Similarcharge, accusation
Note
Criminal slang built on the arrest record, and usually preceded by the offense. In James Neal Harvey's Mental Case (2014), a suspect has spent a year in Rikers "on a drug rap." On a … rap is the typical frame. The "blame" sense comes with the, but this one is countable and needs no conviction behind it.
10
verbtransitive
To utter something quickly and sharply.
She rapped out a sharp reply before hanging up.
The sergeant would rap out commands without pausing.
Similarbark, snap
Note
Here speech is delivered like a blow, and nearly always with out: a sergeant raps out a word of command. The particle is what makes the phrase idiomatic; without it, the verb tends to read as knocking. It suits orders and replies fired off briskly, not speech that is merely fast.

11
verbdatedtransitive
To strike someone or something with a quick, sharp blow; to knock sharply.
The teacher rapped the desk to call the class to order.
With one great peal they rap the door.
1717, Matthew Prior, The Dove
Similarknock, strike, tap, hit
Note
Without at or on, the verb takes its object head-on. Matthew Prior's line in The Dove (1717), "With one great peal they rap the door," shows the construction. In that bare form it now sounds dated. For a door or a window, rap at or rap on is the safer choice in present-day English.
12
verbintransitive
To descend a vertical surface by sliding down a fixed rope; to rappel.
The instructor showed us how to rap off the overhang safely.
Two climbers rapped into the canyon at first light.
Similarrappel, abseil
13
nouncolloquialAustraliacountable or uncountable
Favorable comment or praise about someone or something; a recommendation.
The restaurant earned a glowing rap from local food lovers.
A solid rap from a trusted friend helped him land the role.
Similarendorsement, recommendation, review
Note
Here the adjective has fallen away and the praise is built in. To give a novel quite a rap is to talk it up. The neutral appraisal needs good or bad to show which way it leans, but this one is positive on its own, and emphatic quite a rap is its natural setting. Like its neighbor, it is Australian and informal.
14
nouncolloquialAustraliacountable or uncountable
An assessment or judgment of how good or worthwhile someone or something is.
His first album received a lukewarm rap from the critics.
She wanted an unbiased rap on her business idea before investing.
Similarreview, assessment, verdict, evaluation, appraisal
Note
In this Australian informal use, the verdict lives in the adjective: a good rap, a great rap, a bad rap. Without one, the word only tells you that a judgment was passed. Outside Australia, a bad rap may be heard as blame rather than appraisal, so in writing for an international audience the adjective has to make the direction plain.
15
nouncountable
The least bit; a tiny or negligible amount, used chiefly in negative expressions.
Their threats were not worth a rap to a man with nothing left to lose.
She would not give a rap for the opinions of strangers.
Similarfig, hoot, whit, jot
Note
The coin's lasting afterlife: from the trifling halfpenny of the old Irish token, a rap became the smallest possible amount. It lives in negatives, as in not care a rap and not worth a rap, and sounds odd in a positive sentence. It keeps company with whit and jot, which work the same way.
16
verbtransitive
To seize something and carry it off.
The raiders rapped the cattle and vanished into the hills.
On that ridge the wind will rap a map out of your hands and carry it over the edge.
Similarseize, snatch, grab
17
verbtransitive
To carry someone out of themselves; to fill with rapture or ecstasy.
The vision rapped the pilgrim into a state of holy wonder.
Such glorious singing can rap a listener far beyond ordinary feeling.
Similartransport, enrapture, ravish, entrance
18
nounhistoricalcountable
A token that passed for a halfpenny in early eighteenth-century Ireland; any coin of trifling value.
The merchant refused to take a rap for goods worth a shilling.
Many counterfeits passed about under the name of raps.
1724, Jonathan Swift, “Drapier's Letters”
Note
A coin name tied to a moment in Irish history, perhaps shortened from rapparee. Jonathan Swift's Drapier's Letters (1724) notes that "many counterfeits passed about under the name of raps," so the word carried a hint of worthlessness early on. By Mrs. Alexander's Beaton's Bargain (1886), not being able to touch a rap simply means having no access to the money at all.
19
nouncountable
A standard measure of yarn wound off a reel: 80 yards for worsted and 120 yards for silk or cotton.
The mill measured its output by the rap rather than by weight.
Workers tied off each rap before lifting it from the reel.
Similarskein, hank
Note
A mill measure that has nothing to do with knocking; its origin is uncertain. Raps fit a fixed reckoning: seven raps make one hank, or 840 yards of cotton, wound on a reel a yard and a half round. Thomas Rotherforth Ashenhurst's weaving treatise of 1885 uses the weight of a single rap to work out a yarn's fineness. The 1762 Statutes at Large treat rap and lea as one unit.
20
verbtransitive
To free a pattern within a mold by light blows, so that it can be drawn out cleanly.
The molder rapped the pattern carefully to ease it from the packed sand.
Before drawing the casting form, the apprentice learned to rap it just enough.
Note
A foundry term for a delicate step. The molder taps the pattern, the model the mold was formed around, with light blows so it comes free and can be lifted out without spoiling the shape it left. The blows are deliberately light, and what gets rapped is the pattern, never the finished casting.

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1, 3–4, 6–7, 13–14

From Middle English rap or rappe, of North Germanic origin, related to Norwegian rapp ("a blow, strike, lash"), Swedish rapp ("a blow, lash"), and Danish rap ("a tap, smart, blow").

Meanings 2, 5, 8, 10–11, 20

From Middle English rappen, of North Germanic origin, related to Swedish rappa ("to strike, beat, rap") and German rappeln ("to rattle").

Meanings 15, 18

Perhaps contracted from rapparee.

Meaning 9

From RAP ("record of arrest and prosecution").