sap

Meaning

Noun

1. The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
2. The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
3. Any juice.
4. Vitality.
5. (slang) A naive person; a simpleton.

Verb

1. To drain, suck or absorb from (tree, etc.).
2. To exhaust the vitality of.

Verb

To strike with a sap (with a blackjack).

Verb

1. To subvert by digging or wearing away; to mine; to undermine; to destroy the foundation of.
2. To pierce with saps.
3. To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.
4. To gradually weaken.
5. To proceed by mining, or by secretly undermining; to execute saps.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/sæp/

Etymology

From Middle English sap, from Old English sæp (“juice, sap”), from Proto-West Germanic *sap (“sap, juice”) (compare Dutch sap, German Saft, Icelandic safi), from Proto-Indo-European *sab-, *sap- (“to taste”) (compare Welsh syb-wydd (“fir”), Latin sapa (“must, new wine”), Russian со́пли (sópli, “snivel”), Old Armenian համ (ham, “taste”), Avestan 𐬬𐬌-𐬱𐬁𐬞𐬀 (vi-šāpa, “having poisonous juices”), Sanskrit सबर् (sabar, “juice, nectar”)). More at sage.
The longstanding practice of sapping trees influenced the sense evolution of the military term as trench warfare receded from public conscience.

Sentences

It's shooting branches from the trunk , which means it can't properly get its sap to the top .