taper

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈteɪpə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈteɪpɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪpə(ɹ)
• Homophone: tapir

From Middle English taper, from Old English tapor (“taper, candle, wick of a lamp”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Latin papyrus (“papyrus", used in Mediaeval times to mean "wick of a candle”), or of Celtic origin related to Irish tapar (“taper”), Welsh tampr (“a taper, torch”). Compare Sanskrit तपती (tápati, “(it) warms, gives out heat; to be hot; to heat”). More at tepid.

taper (plural tapers)

1. A slender wax candle; a small lighted wax candle
   • ~1603, William Shakespeare, Othello, Act I, scene I, line 157:

     strike on the tinder, ho!/ Give me a taper.

   • 1913, Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Change

     Love used to carry a bow, you know,

     But now he carries a taper;

     It is either a length of wax aglow,

     Or a twist of lighted paper.

2. (by extension) a small light.
3. A tapering form; gradual diminution of thickness and/or cross section in an elongated object

   the taper of a spire

   The legs of the table had a slight taper to them.

   • 2005, Michael Ellis, Apollo Rises (page 15)

     Her hair hangs over her ears and flows to a taper at the back of her neck where it is held in place with a wide and circular black clasp.

4. A thin stick used for lighting candles, either a wax-coated wick or a slow-burning wooden rod.

• taperwise

taper (third-person singular simple present tapers, present participle tapering, simple past and past participle tapered)

1. (transitive) To make thinner or narrower at one end.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 3

     Though true cylinders without — within, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom.

2. (intransitive) To diminish gradually.

• narrow

• taper off

taper

1. Tapered; narrowing to a point.

tape +‎ -er

taper (plural tapers)

1. (weaving) One who operates a tape machine.
2. Someone who works with tape or tapes.

• Peart, Petra, apert, apter, parte, pater, peart, petar, petra, prate, preta, reapt, repat, retap, trape, treap

taper

1. present of tape

From Middle French taper, from Old French tapper, taper (“to tap”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *tappōn, *dabbōn (“to strike”) or from Middle Low German tappen, tapen (“to tap, rap, strike”); both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *dab- (“to strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰebʰ- (“to beat, strike, stun, be speechless”). Related to German tappen (“to grope, fumble”), Dutch deppen (“to dab”), Icelandic tappa, tapsa, tæpta (“to tap”). Related to dab.

• IPA^(key): /ta.pe/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -e
• Homophones: tapai, tapé, tapée, tapées, tapés, tapez

taper

1. (transitive) to slap, knock, beat
2. (transitive) to type (use a keyboard or typewriter)
3. (transitive with sur) to hit, beat, rap
4. (intransitive) to beat down (of the sun); to go to one's head (of wine etc.)
5. (intransitive, slang) to stink, pong, reek
6. (reflexive, slang) to put away (a meal etc.)

   Je me suis tapé un bon petit hamburger hier soir.

7. (reflexive, vulgar, slang) to fuck (have sex)

   Il s'est tapé la fille de son patron.

• frapper
• cogner

• “taper” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• parte, pâtre, prêta, tarpé

• Audio (Jersey)

  (file)

taper (gerund tap'thie)

1. (Jersey, onomatopoeia) to hit, knock

• taper raide (“to hit hard”)

taper

1. a loser

• tapar (Nynorsk)

taper

1. Indefinite plural of tape

taper

1. Present tense of tape (to lose)
2. (archaic) present tense of tape (to tape)

taper

1. present tense of tape (to lose)

taper

1. to throw