Rap (răp), n. [Etymol.
uncertain.] A lay or skein containing 120 yards of yarn.
Knight.
Rap, v. i. [imp. & p.
p. Rapped (răpt); p. pr. & vb.
n. Rapping.] [Akin to Sw. rappa to strike,
rapp stroke, Dan. rap, perhaps of imitative origin.]
To strike with a quick, sharp blow; to knock; as, to rap
on the door.
Rap, v. t. 1. To
strike with a quick blow; to knock on.
With one great peal they rap the
door.
Prior.
2. (Founding) To free (a pattern) in a
mold by light blows on the pattern, so as to facilitate its
removal.
Rap, n. A quick, smart blow; a
knock.
Rap, v. t. [imp. & p.
p. Rapped (răpt), usually written Rapt;
p. pr. & vb. n. Rapping.] [OE. rapen;
akin to LG. & D. rapen to snatch, G. raffen, Sw.
rappa; cf. Dan. rappe sig to make haste, and Icel.
hrapa to fall, to rush, hurry. The word has been confused with
L. rapere to seize. Cf. Rape robbery, Rapture,
Raff, v., Ramp, v.]
1. To snatch away; to seize and hurry
off.
And through the Greeks and Ilians they rapt
The whirring chariot.
Chapman.
From Oxford I was rapt by my nephew, Sir Edmund
Bacon, to Redgrove.
Sir H. Wotton.
2. To hasten. [Obs.] Piers
Plowman.
3. To seize and bear away, as the mind or
thoughts; to transport out of one's self; to affect with ecstasy or
rapture; as, rapt into admiration.
I 'm rapt with joy to see my Marcia's
tears.
Addison.
Rapt into future times, the bard
begun.
Pope.
4. To exchange; to truck. [Obs. &
Low]
To rap and ren, To rap and
rend. [Perhaps fr. Icel. hrapa to hurry and
ræna plunder, fr. rān plunder, E.
ran.] To seize and plunder; to snatch by violence.
Dryden. "[Ye] waste all that ye may rape and renne."
Chaucer.
All they could rap and rend and
pilfer.
Hudibras.
-- To rap out, to utter with sudden violence,
as an oath.
A judge who rapped out a great
oath.
Addison.Rap, n. [Perhaps contr. fr.
raparee.] A popular name for any of the tokens that passed
current for a half-penny in Ireland in the early part of the
eighteenth century; any coin of trifling value.
Many counterfeits passed about under the name of
raps.
Swift.
Tie it [her money] up so tight that you can't touch a
rap, save with her consent.
Mrs.
Alexander.
Not to care a rap, to care nothing. --
Not worth a rap, worth nothing.