Now dial. Forms: 4 tapis, 8–9 tapish, 9 tappish. [perh. for *tabish, f. L. tābēscere to waste away, decline.] intr. (a) To languish, pine away; (b) to be mortally sick or diseased. Often in pa. pple. in intrans. sense.)
c. 1375. St. Aug., 499, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1878), 70. I … Þat sum tyme was a bitter berkere … Aȝeynes lettres goode and mete … And I tapissed [L. tabescebam] vndur such lettring.
1747. Hooson, Miner’s Dict., V j. When Miners are troubled in the Mines by Damps,… yet … are preserved by being timely helped, and escape with Life; such a one we say, is Tapish’d, more or less.
1865. Sleigh, Derbysh. Gloss., s.v., Hur tappish’d yest’ morn.
1875. Manch. Guard., 1 March (E.D.D.). His brother said he thought he was ‘tappished’ with a decline. Ibid., 29 March. ‘This arm’s tappished,’… ‘This wood’s tappished.’
1891. Sheffield Gloss., Suppl. 58. Tapish, to waste ar pine away…. ‘He tapished and died.’
