Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to seduce a woman; thus japer n., japing n.

1382		Political Poems (Rolls) I 270: Sle thi fadre, and iape thi modre, and thai wyl the assoile [OED].
1465–71		Mankind line 348: mankynde. he yow hens felouse wyth bredynge leue yowr deryson & yowr Iaping.
c.1480		Book of the Knight of de la Tour-Landry in Wright (trans.) (1868) 33: We wende that ye had to be a tryue knight, and ye are but a mocker, and a iaper of ladies [...] For sire, ye haue praied my cosin of loue, and so haue ye me, and ye saide ye loued us, and eche of us had youre herte.
1513		G. Douglas Eneados Prologe Bk IV (1553) lxxi: Your sport for shame, ye dar nor specifye [...] your sory Joyis, bene bot Janglyng and Japis.
1603		in Venables V. Knight [court case] cited in L. Gowing ‘Women, Status and the Popular Culture of Dishonour’ in Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. 6 (1996) 232: [T]hey are link to muncks they are soe ugly shaped / I fear they’ll prove puncks, they being so often japed.

2. to have sexual intercourse; note in cit. 1661 Brome wrote above this poem ‘written in 1645’; however, it refers elsewhere to events that took place in 1646; also as n.; thus japing n.

c.1468		‘Josephs Return’ Coventry Mysteries (1841) xii 118: Goddys childe! thou lyist, in fay: God dede nevyr jape so with may.
1512		Hickscorner Bii: He japed my wyfe and made me cuckolde.
1530		Palsgrave Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse n.p.: Verbes: Iape a wenche [...] It is better to iape a wench than to do worse.
1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits I iv: Thair is an hunder heir sittand by That luvis japing als weill as I.
c.1550		A. Scott Poems (1821) 26: Sum goes so gymp in gyifs, Or scho war kissit plane, Scho leir be japit thryiss.
1568		Bannatyne MSS. Hunterian Club Rept. vi 764: ‘The Vse of Court.’ His wyfe jaippit, his siller spendit [F&H].
1572		G. Gascoigne Councell giuen to Master B. Withipoll in Chalmers Eng. Poets II (1810) 533/1: First, in thy journey jape not ouer much.
c.1580		‘I.T.’ Grim The Collier of Croydon III i: Heard you not never how an actor’s wife, Whom he (fond fool) lov’d dearly as his life, Coming in’s way did chance to get a jape.
1589		G. Puttenham Art of Eng. Poesie III xxii 212: Such wordes as may be drawen to a foule and unshamefast sence, as one that should say to a young woman, I pray you let me iape with you, which is in deed no more than let me sport with you.
1661		A. Brome Songs and Other Poems in Wardroper (1969) 204: Isaac and’s wenches are busy a-digging / But all our delight is in japing and jigging.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 71: Gallants come in Kinsmen’s shape / The hot Adulteress to jape.
1683		‘Ballad’ Harleian Mss. 7319 284: Nere was such a Trapes as Portsmouth that Iapes At all hours.
1927		C. Woofter ‘Dialect Words & Phrases from West-Central West Virginia’ in AS II:8 358: He said that he would jape that woman before another week.