Other forms: straps, strapped, strapping
A strap is a narrow band that holds something on the shoulder. A bag strap, adjust the strap, a broken strap.
The width is what decides comfort under load — a narrow strap concentrates the weight and a wide one spreads it, which is why heavy bags have broad ones. As a verb, to strap something is to fasten it down. Strapped for cash means short of money. Note that the word is related to strop.
1nounstrapA narrow band that holds or fastens something.
“The strap on my bag broke, so I had to carry it in my arms.”
2verbfastenTo fasten something down with a band.
“They strapped the surfboards to the roof of the car.”
strap is a band.
Strap is a variant of strop, from Old English stropp, a band or thong, probably from Latin struppus.
Proto-Indo-European
*strebʰ-
Ancient Greek
στρόφος — rope
Latin
stroppus
Old French
estrope — strap, loop on a harness
Old English
strop
Middle English
strope
English, today
strap
Built from
From a variant of earlier strope (“loop on a harness”), from Middle English strope, stroppe, from Late Old English strop, stropp (“a band, thong, strap; oar-thong”) and Old French estrope (“strap, loop on a harness”), both from Latin stroppus, struppus (“strap”), from Ancient Greek στρόφος (“rope”) (compare strophe), from στρέφω (“to twist”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European strebʰ- (compare Proto-West Germanic stroppōn (“to twist, writhe”)). Cognate with Scots strap, strop (“strap, band, thong”), Dutch strop (“noose, strop, loop”), Low German Strop (“strap”), German Struppe, Strüppe, Strippe (“string, cord”), Danish strop (“strap”), Swedish stropp (“strap, loop”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA