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rap

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Rap means to hit quickly and sharply, or to speak or chant lyrics to a song with a reoccurring beat. (verb)

An example of to rap is to strike a desk with a ruler.
An example of to rap is for Eminem to perform.

A rap is a light knock, tapping sound or criticism, or a style of music where lyrics are spoken or chanted with reoccurring musical beats. (noun)

An example of a rap is a tapping at the door.
An example of rap is the style of Eminem's music.

See rap in Webster's New World College Dictionary

transitive verb rapped, rapping

to strike quickly and sharply; tap
☆ Slang to criticize sharply

intransitive verb

to knock quickly and sharply
☆ to perform rap or a rap
☆ Slang to talk; chat
☆ Slang to talk seriously and frankly with another or others, often in an informal setting

noun

a quick, sharp knock; tap
☆ Slang blame or punishment, as a prison sentence: usually in , escape (or receive) the blame or punishment, or , unfair blame or punishment
☆ Slang a talking; chat
☆ Slang a serious, frank talk
☆
1. a kind of popular music in which rhymed verses are chanted or declaimed to the accompaniment of forceful and repetitive rhythms, played usually on drums or synthesizers
  also rap music
2. a rap song or recording

noun

in the early 18th cent., a counterfeit halfpenny in circulation in Ireland
Informal the least bit: now usually in , not care anything at all

transitive verb rapped or rapt, rapping

to seize
to transport with rapture: now only in the pp.

See rap in American Heritage Dictionary 4

(răp)

verb rapped rapped, rap·ping, raps

verb, transitive

To hit sharply and swiftly; strike: rapped the table with his fist.
To utter sharply: rap out a complaint.
To criticize or blame.

verb, intransitive

To strike a quick light blow: rapped on the door.

noun

A quick light blow or knock.
A knocking or tapping sound.
Slang
a. A reprimand.
b. A sentence to serve time in prison.
Slang A negative quality or characteristic associated with a person or an object.

(răp)

transitive verb rapt rapt or rapped (răpt), rap·ping, raps
Archaic

past participle rapt rapt To enchant or seize with rapture.
To snatch.

(răp)

noun
Informal

The least bit: I don't give a rap about office politics. I don't care a rap what you do.

(răp)

noun

Slang A talk, conversation, or discussion.
a. A form of popular music developed especially in African-American urban communities and characterized by spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics with a strong rhythmic accompaniment.
b. A composition or performance of such music.

intransitive verb rapped rapped, rap·ping, raps

Slang To discuss freely and at length.
To perform rap music.

Our Living Language The culture of hip-hop has been the source of dozens of words and expressions in American English, of which rap is one of the most familiar. The word is probably a development ultimately of rap meaning “to hit.” It shows up in the early 1900s in the extended meaning “to express orally,” as used by so notable a figure as Winston Churchill in 1933. Over the next few decades it came to mean “to discuss or debate informally,” a meaning that was well established in the African-American community by the late 1960s. A decade later the word was applied to an evolving style of music characterized by, among other things, beat-driven rhymes of an often improvisatory nature. The slang that is integral to the lyrics of rap continues to be a source of borrowings into colloquial American English; recent examples include chill, meaning “to calm down,” and dis, meaning “to show disrespect to.” These are but the latest examples in a long series of such borrowings from Black English stretching back a century or more, many of them directly from popular music lyrics or from musicians' lingo.

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