Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also tapped) drunk.

[c.1650		Le Strange Merry Passages and Jeasts No. 158 55: Her Husband [...] coming home tappshackled one night, she makes no more adooe, but falls upon the bones of him with a good cudgel].
1939		T.J. Farr ‘The Language of the Tennessee Mountain Regions’ in AS XIV:2 92: tapped out. Drunk.
1941		M. Prenner ‘Drunk in Sl.’ in AS XVI:1 Jan. 70/1: tapped out.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 209: Tapped (out) Drunk.
1974		(con. 1945) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 412: He could wind up some tapped-out old Asiatic rumdum, shuffling along the back streets of that godforsaken land.

2. (also tapped) out of money, having nothing to use for further betting.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 220/2: Tapped out. Out of funds; ‘broke’; on one’s uppers.
1956		‘James Updyke’ [W.R. Burnett] It’s Always Four O’Clock 161: ‘You got any jack, Jack? I just happened to think—I’m tapped’.
1963		A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 141: I was almost tapped. Broke.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 95: Every ten minutes a chump would shuffle from the rear with a ‘tapped out’ look on his face.
1972		C. Bukowski Erections, Ejaculations etc. 243: We’re tapped out. The kid threw everything into the basket from canned ham to caviar.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 66: I was tapped for cash.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 119: Hey, you couldn’t lend me your pay cheque till the end of the week could you? I’m, like, totally tapped out.
1993		C. Hiaasen Strip Tease 173: Damn, you must be tapped.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 15: People who at one time or another need money in a hurry; so happens they’re tapped out; got no place to get it.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 58: I got nuthin’. I’m tapped.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] I got nothing for ya. Not a thing pal. I’m tapped. You owe ten Jack.

3. (US) exhausted.

1989

C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 121: He looks kind of tapped-out and sickly.

4. emotionally or mentally destroyed.

1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 53: ‘You know what it does to your brain cells?’ ‘If it kills one every ten minutes,’ said the driver, ‘you must be nearly tapped out.’.
1986		H.B. Gilmour Pretty in Pink 22: I found me another heavy metal loser. A tapped-out hippy.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 314: All Edie could do was nod; she was tapped out.

5. intoxicated by a drug, usu. crack cocaine.

1998

L. Stringer Grand Central Winter (1999) 155: I was smoked out, tapped out, thirsty as hell for another blast.