sap

Word family

Related topics: Plants

sap1 /sæp/ noun

1. [uncountableU]HBP the watery substance that carries food through a plant 〔植物的〕液，汁

2. [countableC] informalSTUPID/NOT INTELLIGENT a stupid person who is easy to deceive or treat badly 傻瓜，容易上當的人

Examples from the Corpus

sap• Freezing is further inhibited when the cell sap is divided into several vacuoles rather than a single large one.• There are distinct forms, each with its own beautiful shade of brilliant emerald, sap, and yellowish green.• The country was young, like the century, and full of sap.• He is hardly a sentimental sap who is prone to vicarious patriotism.• In winter it grew dark and fed on the sap in trees, or the blood of animals.• By this stage the sap in the vine will have withdrawn into the roots.• Prune all the stems back to within about 4in of the ground in mid to late March when the sap is rising.

sap2 verb (sapped, sapping) [transitiveT]

WEAKto make something weaker or destroy it, especially someone’s strength or their determination to do something 〔逐漸〕削弱，消耗〔尤指力量或決心〕 SYN weaken

sap somebody’s strength/courage/energy

Her long illness was gradually sapping Charlotte’s strength.

長期生病正逐漸消耗着夏洛特的元氣。

Examples from the Corpus

sap• Their energy and physique had been sapped by interbreeding.• That, in turn, has started to sap enthusiasm throughout the high-technology sector.• It makes you sick, it saps every bit of strength you got.• The effort began to sap his strength and his muscles quivered as at last he pulled himself over the icy edge.• A brief electrical outage had sapped its power.• It sapped my strength and made sweat trickle into my eyes.• It was full of long baseline rallies that sap the concentration and the patience.

Origin sap1

Old English sæp

Chinese

Corpus