| / English Dictionary |
TAPPING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The sound of light blow or knock
Example:
he heard the tapping of the man's cane
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("tapping" is a kind of...):
sound (the sudden occurrence of an audible event)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tapping"):
rat-a-tat; rat-a-tat-tat; rat-tat (a series of short sharp taps (as made by strokes on a drum or knocks on a door))
Derivation:
tap (make light, repeated taps on a surface)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb tap
Context examples:
Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) Extremity Movements, Lower (legs, knees, ankles, toes), e.g., lateral knee movement, foot tapping, heel dropping, foot squirming, inversion and eversion of foot.
(AIMS - Lower Extremities, NCI Thesaurus)
The next moment she was tapping at her husband's dressing-room door, and as Anne followed her up stairs, she was in time for the whole conversation, which began with Mary's saying, in a tone of great exultation—I mean to go with you, Charles, for I am of no more use at home than you are.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker’s bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all wonder, and could not take his eyes off them.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
“What about your government and all this treatment?” said Holmes, tapping the valise.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“It was a slight, sir, a public slight,” said Lord St. Simon, tapping his fingers upon the table.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I take them back then, and indeed it gives me unease not to feel my yew-stave tapping against my leg bone.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Shut up in his room, and he won't answer, though I've been a-tapping.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Hear! and tapping at the wall, by way of applause.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic or out of revenge for his ill words and blows I know not; but there he remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping and calling for his comrades.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He was squatting down on his heels, face to face with White Fang and petting him—rubbing at the roots of the ears, making long caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping the spine gently with the balls of his fingers.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
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