lap

Pronunciation: /læp/

The English word “lap” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

The loose part of a coat; the lower part of a garment that plays loosely; a skirt; an apron.
An edge; a border; a hem, as of cloth.
The part of the clothing that lies on the knees or thighs when one sits down; that part of the person thus covered.
A place of rearing and fostering.
The upper legs of a seated person.
The female pudenda.
A component that overlaps or covers any portion of itself or of an adjacent component.
The act or process of lapping.
That part of any substance or fixture which extends over, or lies upon, or by the side of, a part of another.

verb

To enfold; to hold as in one's lap; to cherish.
To rest or recline in someone's lap, or as in a lap.
To fold; to bend and lay over or on something.
to wrap around, enwrap, wrap up
to envelop, enfold
to wind around
To place or lay (one thing) so as to overlap another.
To polish (a surface, especially metal or gemstone) with very fine abrasive to achieve smoothness and small dimensional changes.
To be turned or folded; to lie partly on or over something; to overlap.
To overtake a straggler in a race by completing one more whole lap than the straggler.
To cut or polish with a lap, as glass, gems, cutlery, etc.

Etymology

From Middle English lappe, from Old English læppa (“skirt or flap of a garment”), from Proto-West Germanic *lappō, from Proto-Germanic *lappô (“cloth; rag”), of uncertain origin, possibly Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“to hang loosely”). Cognate with Dutch lap (“cloth; rag”), German Lappen (“cloth; lobe; flap”), Icelandic leppur (“rag; patch”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.