rap

Rap, n.

A lay or skein containing 120 yards of yarn. Knight.

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, usually written Rapt; p. pr. & vb. n. Rapping.]

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. & Law] To rap and ren, To rap and rend. Etym: [Perhaps fr. Icel. hrapa to hurry and ræna plunder, fr. ran 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 pilfer. Hudibras. -- To rap out, to utter with sudden violence, as an oath. A judge who rapped out a great oath. Addison.

Rap, n.

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.