A hasp is a hinged metal fastening for a door or a chest. A hasp and staple, fit a hasp, the hasp was forced.
It is the hinged plate that drops over a loop, and the padlock through the loop is what actually locks it. A hasp is only as strong as its screws, which is why the good ones are fitted with bolts that cannot be reached from outside.
1nounhaspA hinged metal fastening for a door or a chest.
“He fixed a hasp to the shed door so he could lock it at night.”
hasp is a fastening.
Old English haepse names a fastening, from a West Germanic root.
Proto-Indo-European
*kh₂em- — to bend; crook
Proto-Germanic
*haspijǭ
Proto-West Germanic
*haspijā
Old English
hæsp
Middle English
haspe
English, today
hasp
Built from
From Middle English haspe, hespe, from Old English hæsp, hæpse (“hasp; clasp; fastening”), from Proto-West Germanic haspijā, from Proto-Germanic haspijǭ, hapsijǭ (“hasp”), from Proto-Indo-European kh₂em- (“to bend; crook”). Cognate with Middle Dutch haspe, Middle Low German haspe, hespe, German Low German Haspel (“spindle of yarn”), German Häspe, Danish haspe, Swedish hasp, Icelandic hespa (“clamp; hasp; skein of yarn”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire