sapping

English

Verb

sapping

  1. present participle and gerund of sap

Noun

sapping (plural sappings)

  1. The act by which something is sapped or depleted.
    • December 22, 1821, Joseph Story, Address Delivered Before the Members of the New-England Society, in Charleston
      [The government] may be destroyed by popular violence, or the madness of party, or the deeper sappings of corruption.
  2. The act of excavating trenches.
  3. The act of being struck with a sap or club.
    • 1964, Raymond Chandler, Killer in the Rain:
      And when he had me up there he would sap me again and I wouldn't remember anything that happened in between the two sappings.
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