Rap \Rap\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Rapped} (r[a^]pt); p. pr. & vb. n. {Rapping}.] [Akin to Sw. rappa to strike, rapp stroke, Dan. rap, perhaps of imitative origin.] To strike with a quick, sharp blow; to knock; as, to rap on the door.
Rap \Rap\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Rapped} (r[a^]pt), usually written {Rapt}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Rapping}.] [OE. rapen; akin to LG. & D. rapen to snatch, G. raffen, Sw. rappa; cf. Dan. rappe sig to make haste, and Icel. hrapa to fall, to rush, hurry. The word has been confused with L. rapere to seize. Cf. {Rape} robbery, {Rapture}, {Raff}, v., {Ramp}, v.] 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. & Low]
5. To engage in a discussion, converse. [PJC]
6. (ca. 1985) to perform a type of rhythmic talking, often with accompanying rhythm instruments. It is considered by some as a type of music; see {rap music}. [PJC]
{To rap and ren}, {To rap and rend}. [Perhaps fr. Icel. hrapa to hurry and r[ae]na plunder, fr. r[=a]n 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 and pilfer. --Hudibras.
{To rap out}, to utter with sudden violence, as an oath.
A judge who rapped out a great oath. --Addison.
Lexus officials extol the importance of this by rapping the stuff with a screwdriver, producing a thud instead of a metallic ping.
Nicholas Hytner's strutting, rapping production portrayed a predatory jungle where people are commodities, where the innocent survive only by learning duplicity, and where the clowns in authority are not only buffoons but can be brutes as well.