Forms: 4 tap(p)e, 5 topp, 6– tap. [f. TAP v.2 So OFris. tap; cf. F. tape slap.]
1. A single act of tapping; a light but audible blow or rap; the sound made by such a blow.
13[?]. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 406. Ȝif I þe telle trwly, quen I þe tape haue. Ibid., 2357. At þe þrid þou fayled þore, & þer-for þat tappe ta þe.
a. 1466. Chas. Dk. Orleans, Poems (Roxb.), 7. As strokis grete not tippe, nor tapp, do way The rewdisshe child so best lo shall he wynne.
a. 1577. Gascoigne, Adv. F. I., Wks. (Roxb.), I. 463. Much greater is the wrong that rewardeth euill for good, than that which requireth tip for tap.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. i. 206. This is the right Fencing grace (my Lord) tap for tap and so part faire.
c. 1614. Fletcher, etc., Wit at Sev. Weapons, III. i. But when a man’s sore beaten o’ both sides already, Then the least tap in jest goes to the guts on him.
1720. Jenyns, Art Dancing, II. Poems (1761), 21. Let them a while their nimble feet restrain, And with soft taps beat time to ev’ry strain.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, vii. A gentle tap at the chamber-door roused her.
1862. Sala, Seven Sons, II. vii. 194. The convicts were called off by the tap of a drum.
1877. Encycl. Brit., VII. 609/2. Rolling croquet … is made by trailing the mallet after the balls as soon as the stroke or tap is made.
b. Tap-tap, a repeated tap; a series of taps; also adv.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, ii. Mr. Tressle’s man … ceased his tap-tap upon the coffin.
1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xxiii. The water went tap, tap, tap against the bends.
1905. E. Chandler, Unveiling of Lhasa, xii. 212. The tap-tap of the Maxim, like a distant woodpecker, in the valley.
2. Pl. Taps (U.S. Milit.): a signal sounded on the drum or trumpet, fifteen minutes after the tattoo, at which all lights in the soldiers’ quarters are to be extinguished. Sounded also, like last post (POST sb.8) over the grave of a soldier.
1862. Index (U. S.), 25 Sept. I well remember how ‘at taps’ we were wont to huddle together in our narrow quarters, each man’s knapsack serving for his pillow.
1869. T. W. Higginson, Army Life (1870), 34. The mystic curfew which we call ‘taps.’
1891. Cambridge (Mass.) Tribune, 10 Jan., 8/5. The customary volleys were fired over the grave, and Bugler Fitzgerald sounded ‘taps,’ the soldier’s last sad farewell.
1899. Annie F. Johnston, Two Little Knights of Kentucky, viii. 192. I’ll run and get my old bugle, and you play ‘taps.’
1904. J. A. Riis, Roosevelt, viii. ¶ 24, 199. Taps had been sounded long since.
3. A piece of leather with which the worn-down heel or sole of a boot is made up and repaired or ‘tapped’ (U.S.); a plate or piece of iron with which the heel is shielded; also, the sole of a shoe (Eng. dial.), (Cf. TAP v.2 3.)
On one’s taps, on one’s feet; on the move; busy.
1688–c. 1850. [see HEEL-TAP sb. 1].
1844. W. Barnes, Poems Rural Life, Gloss, Tap, the sole of a shoe.
1855. Haliburton, Nat. & Hum. Nat., II. 332. They have to be on their taps most all the time.
1864. Webster, Tap … the piece of leather fastened upon the bottom of a boot or shoe in tapping it, or in repairing or renewing the sole or heel.
1882. Jago, Cornw. Gloss., Tap, the sole of a boot or shoe. Also the iron … ‘scute’ of the heel, ‘heel tap.’
4. Comb. Tap-piece = 3; hence Tap-piece v., to repair with a tap-piece.
1903. R. Watson, Closeburn, xiv. 235. Mony a day I hae tappieced and heeled your auld shoon.
