• IPA: /læp/

lap (plural laps)

1. The loose part of a coat; the lower part of a garment that plays loosely; a skirt; an apron.
2. An edge; a border; a hem, as of cloth.
3. The part of the clothing that lies on the knees or thighs when one sits down; that part of the person thus covered
4. (figuratively) a place of rearing and fostering
5. The upper legs of a seated person.

   The boy was sitting on his mother's lap.

6. (archaic, euphemistic) The female pudenda. [17th century]
7. (construction) A component that overlaps or covers any portion of itself or of an adjacent component.

• French: côté
• Portuguese: regaço
• Russian: подо́л

• Portuguese: borda
• Russian: край
• Spanish: dobladillo

• French: giron
• Portuguese: colo
• Spanish: regazo

• French: genoux, giron
• German: Schoß
• Italian: grembo
• Portuguese: colo
• Spanish: regazo

lap (laps, present participle lapping; past and past participle lapped)

1. (transitive) To enfold; to hold as in one's lap; to cherish.

   • Her garment spreads, and laps him in the folds.

2. (transitive) To rest or recline in a lap, or as in a lap.

   • to lap his head on lady's breast

lap (laps, present participle lapping; past and past participle lapped)

1. (transitive) To fold; to bend and lay over or on something.

   to lap a piece of cloth

2. (transitive) to wrap around, enwrap, wrap up

   to lap a bandage around a finger

   • About the paper […] I lapped several times a slender thread of very black silk.

3. (transitive) to envelop, enfold

   lapped in luxury

4. (intransitive) to wind around
5. (transitive) To place or lay (one thing) so as to overlap another.

   One laps roof tiles so that water can run off.

6. (transitive) To polish, e.g., a surface, until smooth.
7. (intransitive) To be turned or folded; to lie partly on or over something; to overlap.

   The cloth laps back.

   The boats lap; the edges lap.

   • The upper wings are opacous; at their hinder ends, where they lap over, transparent, like the wing of a fly.

8. (transitive) To overtake a straggler in a race by completing one more whole lap than the straggler.
9. To cut or polish with a lap, as glass, gems, cutlery, etc.

• German: überrunden

lap (plural laps)

1. The act or process of lapping.
2. That part of any substance or fixture which extends over, or lies upon, or by the side of, a part of another.

   the lap of a board

3. The state or condition of being in part extended over or by the side of something else; or the extent of the overlapping.

   The second boat got a lap of half its length on the leader.

4. The amount by which a slide valve at its half stroke overlaps a port in the seat, being equal to the distance the valve must move from its mid stroke position in order to begin to open the port. Used alone, lap refers to outside lap (see below).
5. (sports) One circuit around a race track, or one traversal down and then back the length of a pool

   to run twenty laps

   to win by three laps

   swim two laps

6. In card playing and other games, the points won in excess of the number necessary to complete a game; — so called when they are counted in the score of the following game.
7. A sheet, layer, or bat, of cotton fiber prepared for the carding machine.
8. A piece of brass, lead, or other soft metal, used to hold a cutting or polishing powder in cutting glass, gems, etc. or in polishing cutlery, etc. It is usually in the form of a wheel or disk that revolves on a vertical axis.

• German: Runde, Platzrunde
• Italian: giro di pista
• Portuguese: volta
• Russian: круг
• Spanish: vuelta

lap (laps, present participle lapping; past and past participle lapped)

1. (ambitransitive) To take (liquid) into the mouth with the tongue; to lick up with a quick motion of the tongue.

   Don't lap your soup like that, you look like a dog.

   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene i]:

     They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.

   • The dogs by the River Nilus's side, being thirsty, lap hastily as they run along the shore.

2. (intransitive, of water) To wash against a surface with a splashing sound; to swash.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur

     I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, / And the wild water lapping on the crag.

• French: laper
• German: schlecken
• Russian: лака́ть

lap (plural laps)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Clipping of laparoscopy#English|laparoscopy.

lap (not comparable)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Clipping of laparoscopic#English|laparoscopic.