Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a radio or TV drama series, e.g. The Archers, Coronation Street, which tells the interminable tale of supposedly ‘ordinary life’; thus soap v., to watch a soap opera.

1939		Newsweek 13 Nov. 44/2: Transcontinental Network bubbled up out of the ‘soap operas’ .
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 220: I’ve never taken part in a so-called soap opera.
1946		Time 26 Aug. 56: One of radio’s most popular soapers.
1956		Sat. Rev. (US) 14 July 24: Writing soaps is actually helpful to a would-be serious author.
1957		P. Moore Chocolates for Breakfast 103: She got a small part in a soap opera.
1960		N.Y. Times Mag. 4 Dec. 111: Some of the new plot developments in television would never have happened in radio soaps.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 387: It was apparant that the soap opera would become a runaway hit.
1972		New Yorker 12 Feb. 79: None of the catastrophes on soaps—and nearly every soap event is a catastrophe—are set up with much sentiment.
1980		Jackson & Christian Death Row 129: I do not watch Soaps.
1981		S. King Roadwork in Bachman Books (1995) 366: He looked at the TV. There was a soaper on.
1984		C. White Life and Times of Little Richard 193: Take that Bible out of your trunk, and get up from those soap operas!
1992		V. Headley Yardie 89: These soap operas influence people to an extent.
1996		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 7: soap – watch the soap operas on television: ‘Time to soap!’.
1999		Observer Review 13 June 16: She clearly saw soap as a staging post with not enough intrinsic value.
2000		Guardian Guide 8–14 Jan. 15: A brief stint on daytime soap All My Children.
2000		Observer Screen 9 Jan. 3: We aren’t governed by the same realism or naturalistic rules as say a soap opera.
2011		D. Telegraph (Sydney) 21 Dec. 🌐 Ewing plays bad boy Heath Braxton in the Channel 7 soap.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1942		W. Stegner Mormon Country 347: They deal with impressionable virgins caught in the net of polygamy and agonizing worse than any soap-opera heroine through endless difficulties.
1958		T. Capote Breakfast at Tiffany’s 10: A soap serial he has listened to for fifteen years.
1972		New Yorker 12 Feb. 79: None of the catastrophes on soaps—and nearly every soap event is a catastrophe—are set up with much sentiment.
1977		Maclean’s (Toronto) 31 Oct. 20: ‘Is this going to happen every day?’ was a repeated bleat from those deprived of their Monday soap fix.
2010		IOL News (Western Cape) 1 July 🌐 One of South Africa’s most notorious soap bitches.

3. also in fig. use, of anything endlessly repetitive, albeit melodramatic.

1943		R. Chandler Lady in the Lake (1952) 41: Thanks for listening to the soap opera. And thanks for the liquor.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 26: Did he soak up my soap opera!
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 260: I’m sorry. No more soap opera, I promise.
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 111: She’s tired of the same fuckin’ soap.