slap

SLAP/slæp/

14 meanings of slap

1
nouncountable
A smacking blow, typically delivered with the palm of the hand or with a flat, broad object.
A sharp slap across the face brought the argument to a sudden halt.
He felt the sting of a wet towel's slap on his back.
Similarsmack, cuff, whack, swat
Note
A blow probably named for the noise it makes: Middle English slappen is of uncertain origin but possibly imitative. Low German Slappe means the same thing, and German Schlappe, which comes from it, means "defeat." The blow is not always hostile. A slap on the back is a gesture of camaraderie, while a slap across the face is an affront.
2
verbtransitive
To strike someone sharply with the open hand.
She raised her hand as if to slap him.
The angry customer slapped the clerk before storming out.
Similarsmack, hit, strike, cuff
Note
Hands meet more than faces here. In Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Flanders slaps her coat this side and that to get the sand off, so the object can be clothing or a surface, not only a person. When it is a person, English usually names the target with a preposition: slap someone across the face, or on the back.
3
nouncountable
A sharp percussive sound like the one produced by an open-handed blow.
The slap of waves against the hull kept her awake all night.
A sudden slap echoed across the yard as the rope snapped taut.
Similarsmack, crack, clap, thwack
4
verbtransitive
To cause something to strike a surface soundly.
She slapped the dough onto the floured board.
He likes to slap the cards down hard whenever he wins a hand.
Similarslam, bang, thump, smack, plonk
5
verbintransitive
To beat or strike against a surface with a sharp sound.
Loose ropes slap against the mast whenever the wind picks up.
The flag slapped noisily against the pole during the storm.
Similarbang, flap, beat, smack
Note
The intransitive partner of the 'make something strike' verb: here the thing that hits is the subject, and it usually takes against. Rain slaps against the window-panes, and ropes slap against a mast. Waves, flags and loose rigging are its natural subjects, and nobody has to be doing the slapping.
6
verbtransitive
To place or put something carelessly.
He slapped a few stickers on his laptop without thinking.
Don't just slap the report on my desk and walk away.
Similardump, toss, plonk, chuck, stick
7
verbcolloquialfigurativelytransitive
To impose a penalty, fine, or charge on someone.
The court slapped him with a hefty fine for the violation.
Officials threatened to slap new taxes on imported goods.
Similarhit, impose, levy, saddle
Oppositelift, waive
Note
Two constructions carry this figurative verb. The penalized person can be the object, usually in the passive with with: I was slapped with a parking fine. Or the penalty is the object and lands on something: slap new taxes on imported goods. Either way the word keeps some of the informal sting of the blow it borrows from.
8
verbslangintransitive
To be excellent, especially of music.
The bass line on this track absolutely slaps.
Those beats slap harder than anything else released this year.
Similarrock, rule, excel, shine, slay
Oppositesuck, stink
Note
Praise in recent slang, usually for a song or album, and the verb takes no object: a track simply slaps. Its typical company is blunt. People say the album fucking slaps or shit slaps, and a 2016 single still slaps to this day. Those intensifiers keep it out of formal writing. Bang, rule and rock work the same way, and its British cousin is the adjective for 'excellent'.
9
adverb
Exactly or precisely; used to emphasize an exact position or point.
The café is slap in the center of the old town.
He arrived slap on time for the meeting.
Similarright, bang, smack, dead, exactly
Note
An emphatic adverb that usually sits right before a phrase of place or time: slap in the middle of the table, slap on time. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island has a sailor promise to sail slap in. Tony Pastor's comic songs of 1864 end a line with swallowed him slap, where the adverb stands on its own. It has no comparative forms.
10
adjectiveslangUK
Very good, excellent, or amazing.
The gig last night was properly slap.
She reckons their new kit is slap.
Similarbrilliant, amazing, awesome, excellent, wicked
Oppositerubbish, awful, terrible, naff
Note
The British slang adjective, mostly used after a verb: these cookies are slap, or the gig was properly slap. It compares with more slap and most slap rather than an -er ending. It carries the same approval as the verb 'slaps', but it belongs to UK speech.

11
nounslanguncountable
Makeup or cosmetics worn on the face.
Give me five minutes to put my slap on before we leave.
She never leaves the house without a bit of slap.
Similarmakeup, warpaint, cosmetics
Note
Slang for makeup, treated as a mass noun: you put your slap on, or you have too much slap on. It keeps lively company in James Gardiner's Who's a Pretty Boy Then? (1997), alongside words like riah and zhooshed, and Matt Houlbrook's Queer London (2006) quotes it in reported speech. It is jocular and conversational, and it would sound odd in a product description.
12
nounslangcountable
A sticker with a bold, eye-catching design, used as a form of street art.
She designs her own slaps and pastes them around the city.
A bold slap with neon lettering covered the old poster.
Similarsticker
Note
Street-art slang that belongs beside graffiti and stickering, as one of the tools artists use to reclaim public space from commercial use. Saskia Hufnagel and Duncan Chappell's The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime (2019) sets 'slaps' in quotation marks, which suggests the word has not yet settled into formal prose. In general writing, a brief gloss on first use is the safe choice. Among street artists it needs none.
13
verbcolloquialtransitive
To play a bass using the percussive technique of striking and snapping the strings.
He can slap his bass with incredible speed and precision.
The bassist slapped her four-string through the entire set.
14
nouncountable
The punchy, percussive note that the slap technique produces in bass playing.
Each slap rang out crisply over the rhythm section.
The producer boosted the slaps so they punched through the mix.
Note
A word from the bandstand that counts freely: players and producers talk about slaps in the plural, each one a struck note. The sharp attack comes from the thumb hitting a string against the fretboard, the stroke described by the verb for playing slap bass. Bob Stanley, writing on Woodstock in 2019, hears 'conga slaps' too, so the noun stretches to hand-struck drums.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English slappen, of uncertain origin, possibly imitative of the sound. It may be compared with Low German Slappe ("slap"), the source of German Schlappe ("defeat"), and with Italian sleppa ("slap").