tap

UK/tæp/US/tæp/

nounA24 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,893 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: taped, tapped, tapping, taping, taps

The tap is the thing you turn to make water come out. Over the kitchen sink, on the side of the bath, out in the garden with a hose screwed onto it.

Americans call the same object a faucet. The verb is a different word that happens to be spelled alike: you tap the window with a coin, tap your foot to the music, tap somebody on the shoulder. Phones have taken it over — you tap an icon, and you tap your card on the reader to pay for the bus. Beer on tap comes out of a barrel rather than a bottle, so anything on tap is there the moment you want it. Police tap a phone when they listen in secretly, and a company taps into a market when it finally gets at one.

Definitions of tap

1nountapThe fitting you turn or push to let water out of a pipe.A2~83%
“Turn the tap off while you brush your teeth.”
- Said"Turn the tap off properly; it's been dripping all night."
- WrittenThe taps in the old house coughed twice before anything came out.
- UsedRun the tap until it runs cold before you fill the kettle.
- ContrastA tap, not a shower. A shower falls on you; a tap fills what you hold under it. shower →
- Not thisA tap is not the water; it is the metal thing the water comes out of.
Patternturn the tap on / off · hot / cold tap · a dripping / leaking tap · tap water · under the tap
synonyms: faucet
2verbsoundTo hit something lightly and quickly, once or several times.A2~7%
“She tapped the glass with her spoon and the room went quiet.”
3verbtouchTo touch a screen or a card reader briefly.A2~7%
“Tap the blue button to pay.”
4verblistenTo listen secretly to somebody's telephone calls.B2~3%
“They suspected the line had been tapped for months.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 128 sentences found in the wild and placed 29 of them on a sense (99 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: faucet

Remember it

TAP → tap, tap, tap into the sink at night

Turn it off badly and all night long you hear it: tap, tap, tap into the sink.

Phrases it lives in

on tap — there whenever you want it
tap into — start making use of something that was there all along

Also practised as

verbTo strike lightly and repeatedly.

Where it comes from

Two words, one spelling. The water tap is Old English tæppa, from Proto-Germanic *tappô — a plug, a peg, a tapering stick. It was the wooden peg knocked into a barrel first, and to tap a barrel was to pierce it and let the beer run. The other tap, the light knock, is a separate word: Middle English tappen, to give a thing a knock.

Proto-Indo-European
*deh₂p- — to lose; to sacrifice
Proto-Germanic
*tappô — a plug, tap; peg; tapering stick
Proto-West Germanic
*tappō
Old English
tæppa
Middle English
tappe — hollow device for controlling the flow of liquid from a hole, cock, faucet, spigot; hole through which the liquid flows; the liquid which thus flows
English, today
tap

The noun is derived from Middle English tappe (“hollow device for controlling the flow of liquid from a hole, cock, faucet, spigot; hole through which the liquid flows; the liquid which thus flows”), from Old English tæppa, from Proto-West Germanic tappō, from Proto-Germanic tappô (“a plug, tap; peg; tapering stick”), from Proto-Indo-European deh₂p- (“to lose; to sacrifice”). a doublet of tapa. The verb is derived from Middle English tappen (“to obtain (liquid, chiefly liquor) from a tap; to obtain and sell (liquor)”), from Old English tæppian (“to provide (a container) with a stopper; to obtain (liquid) from a tap”), and then either:

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

tap in the wild

There are two major versions of tap dance: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap.
Tap dance
The sound is made by shoes that have a metal "tap" on the heel and toe.
Tap dance
In many countries, tap water usually has the quality of drinking water.
Tap water
A tap is used to cut or form the female portion of the mating pair (e.g. a nut).
Tap and die
However using an ordinary tap or die to clean threads generally removes some material, which results in looser, weaker threads.
Tap and die

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of tap

1nountapThe fitting you turn or push to let water out of a pipe.A2~83%

“Turn the tap off while you brush your teeth.”

Said"Turn the tap off properly; it's been dripping all night."
WrittenThe taps in the old house coughed twice before anything came out.
UsedRun the tap until it runs cold before you fill the kettle.
ContrastA tap, not a shower. A shower falls on you; a tap fills what you hold under it. shower →
Not thisA tap is not the water; it is the metal thing the water comes out of.

Patternturn the tap on / off · hot / cold tap · a dripping / leaking tap · tap water · under the tap

synonyms: faucet

2verbsoundTo hit something lightly and quickly, once or several times.A2~7%

“She tapped the glass with her spoon and the room went quiet.”

3verbtouchTo touch a screen or a card reader briefly.A2~7%

“Tap the blue button to pay.”

4verblistenTo listen secretly to somebody's telephone calls.B2~3%

“They suspected the line had been tapped for months.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 128 sentences found in the wild and placed 29 of them on a sense (99 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: faucet