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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pap.

Food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/pæp/
  1. Food in the form of a soft paste, often a porridge, especially as given to very young children.

    uncountable
    Pap can be made from bread boiled in milk or water.
  2. Pablum or nonsense.

    colloquial · uncountable
  3. Porridge.

    South-Africa · countable · uncountable
    Pap and wors are traditionally eaten at a braai.
  4. A fermented cereal pudding made from corn, sorghum, or millet

    Africa · Nigeria · West · countable · uncountable
  5. Support from official patronage.

    countable · derogatory · informal · uncountable
    Treasury pap
  6. The pulp of fruit.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes 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.

verb/pæp/
  1. To feed with pap.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes 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.

noun/pæp/
  1. A female breast or nipple.

    archaic
  2. A man's breast.

    archaic
  3. A rounded, nipple-like hill or peak.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English pappe, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Latin papilla; or perhaps compare Old Swedish papp (“breast, nipple”), from Proto-Germanic *pap- (“nipple”), of imitative origin, or from Proto-Indo-European *pap- (“pock mark, nipple”); Swedish dialectal papp, pappe, Swedish patt, Danish patte, North Frisian pap, pape, papke (“breast, pap”).

adj/pap/General-South-African/pæp/
  1. Weak, feeble; lacking substance.

    South-Africa · slang
  2. Spineless, wet, without character.

    South-Africa · slang
    He is so pap and boring.
  3. Flat.

    South-Africa · slang
    I got a puncture and the wheel went pap.
Where this word comes from

From Afrikaans pap (“porridge”). Cognate with etymology 1.

verb/pæp/
  1. To take a surreptitious photograph of (someone, especially a celebrity) without their consent.

    informal
    Look, that pop star’s been papped in her bikini again!
Where this word comes from

Clipping of paparazzo.

noun/pæp/
  1. Pa; father.

    informal
Where this word comes from

Compare pa, papa, pop.

noun/pæp/
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Pap (“Pap smear”).

    alt-of
Where this word comes from

Ellipsis of Pap smear.

noun/pæp/
  1. Clipping of paparazzo.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping · informal
Where this word comes from

Clipping of paparazzo.

verb/pæp/
  1. Alternative letter-case form of PAP (“post a picture”).

    Internet · alt-of
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.