wapper

English

Etymology 1

Frequentative of wap; compare German dialect wappern, wippern (“to move up and down, to rock”).

Verb

wapper (third-person singular simple present wappers, present participle wappering, simple past and past participle wappered)

1. (transitive, obsolete or dialect) To exhaust; to tire out.
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, The Life of Tymon of Athens:

     this is it, That makes the wapper'd widow wed again;

   • 1876, Adeline Dutton Train Whitney, Sights and Insights: Patience Strong's Story of Over the Way, page 318:

     Emery Ann declared to me, privately, after I had said in general council that I felt it impossible, that she was "really wappered out with mountains; […] "

   • 1899, Joseph Arthur Gibbs, A Cotswold Village, page 258:

     Marry, 'tis nigh on forty mile, I warrant. Thou'll not see Stratford to-night, sir; thy horse is wappered out, and that I plainly see."

   • 1962, Prudence Andrew, A Question of Choice, page 20:

     They monks be weedy batch! Make un wappered and whelmed! Make un moil! '

   • 1967, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, A Ring of Words, page 97:

     At first he felt somewhat wappered.

   • 2010, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Face Down upon an Herbal:

     "I be wappered," Catherine declared as she flung herself down upon the bed and assumed a pose that denoted complete exhaustion.

   • 2011, Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, Words We Don't Use (Much Anymore):

     When I asked him how he was he confessed to being wappered, which he explained meant tired, fatigued, or, as we might say, knackered.

2. (intransitive) To move weakly or tremulously; to flag.
   • 1610, John Higgins, The Mirour for Magistrates:

     But still he stode, his face to set awrye, And wappering turnid vp his white of eye.

   • 1634, Mateo Alemán, The Rogve: Or, The Life of Gvzman de Alfarache:

     She was toothlesse, chap-falne, hollow-eyed, and wappering withall, her haire sluttishly hanging about her eares, unkempt, and as greazie as it was knotty;

   • 1912 March 28, “Present-Day Criticism”, in The New Age, volume 10, number 22, page 519:

     Miss Mansfield abandons her salt furrow and in two stanzas lies flapping and wappering.

   • 1930, The Cornhill Magazine, page 638:

     She was wappering and seemed shot.

   • 2003, Patrick Mynhardt, Boy from Bethulie: An Autobiography, page 122:

     his blue and white dotted tarentaal scarf wappering in the wind.

See also

• wapper jaw
• wapper-jawed

References

• “wapper”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Etymology 2

Borrowing from Flemish

Noun

wapper (plural wappers)

1. A mischievous sprite.
   • 1863, John Beauchamp Jones, Wild Western Scenes, page 40:

     "And a wapper, too; when I first saw it I thought it was a rabbit, and now it's bigger than a deer, and still a mile or two off," said Joe.

   • 2022, William Elliot Griffis, Belgian Fairy Tales:

     The Wapper had, just for the fun of it, put an iron pot under the hat.

   • 2022, Edward Neville Vose, The Spell of Flanders:

     Presently the good woman discovered to her horror that the foundling was swelling and becoming heavy, and when she put it down the Wapper assumed his own shape and ran off shrieking.

Anagrams

• wrappe

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑpər

Verb

wapper

1. inflection of wapperen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative