pap

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   US dialect: father; pa

   Pap had not been seen in town for more than a year.

2. 2
   noun

   soft or semi-liquid food, especially food prepared for an infant

   The baby was fed a warm pap made from bread and milk.

3. 3
   noun

   worthless, bland, or oversimplified ideas or entertainment

   The article dismissed the program as sentimental pap.

4. 4
   noun

   archaic: a breast or nipple

   The old anatomical description refers to a swelling beneath the left pap.

Simplified etymology

Pap, meaning bland, soft, or semiliquid food, appeared in Middle English and is probably based on Latin pappare, “to eat.” The separate old sense “a woman’s breast” may come from Latin pappilla, “nipple,” or from a Scandinavian root imitating the sound of a nursing baby. In Pap test, Pap instead comes from the surname of George Papanicolaou, after whom the cervical-cancer screening test was named; he suggested the technique in 1928.

The father sense is a childlike shortening related to papa. The food and anatomical senses come through Middle English pap or pappe, probably from infant-directed or imitative speech for soft food and the breast; the figurative sense extends bland infant food to insubstantial ideas.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary