Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (US, also yapper, yop) the mouth, usu. in derog. sense, e.g. shut your yap! etc.

1833		J. Neal Down-Easters I 78: You shet your yop, an’ mind your own business.
1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. I 40: Hold your yop, you tarnal Frenchman!
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Jan. 20/1: Thy yap is now silent, thy bed is stone-cold, / Where thy smile and thy welcome met us of old.
1894		Herald (Los Angeles) 28 Oct. 9/1: They don’t dare open their yap.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words & Phrases’ in DN II:i 70: yap, n. The mouth.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 35/1: An’ ’old yer yap, Sam, for five minutes, if yer possibly ken, while I finish this ’ere interestin’ story I’m readin’ of.
1911		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 Days 24: You shut your yap!
1920		F. Packard White Moll 174: It’s just a couple of crooks that won’t dare open their yaps to the bulls.
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 201: Keep yer yap shut.
1934		in Botkin Sidewalks of America (1954) 400: When day is dawning, / Our yappers are yawning / For ‘Oh! you ham and eggs.’.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Baseball Hattie’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 644: She sits there very quiet all afternoon, never once opening her yap.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Don’t Dream’ in Hollywood Detective July 🌐 I seized the bourbon bottle [...], tilted it to my yapper and let a generous jorum run down my alimentary tract.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 35: Before I had a chance to open my yap, [he] said, ‘Shut up or I’ll bust you in the nose.’.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 151: He waited until we were in the car before he opened his yap.
1959		H. Ellison ‘Sally in Our Alley’ Gentleman Junkie (1961) 118: Aggie never could keep her yap shut.
1961		T.I. Rubin In the Life 93: My yapper keeps doing a big sales pitch. [Ibid.] 80: I dig enough to keep my yap shut.
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 23: The first thought which occurs to the Law is — who among the servants has opened their big yap?
1973		G.V. Higgins Digger’s Game (1981) 33: Shut your goddamned yap.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 115: Brucie [...] copped the don’t-come-the-raw-prawn treatment. So he fastened his yap.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 429: The yap that is a person’s mouth, as in ‘Shut your big yap.’.
1991		O.D. Brooks Legs 5: Yuh been on my ass since yuh first opened yur yap.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 150: So we keep our yaps zipped and listen.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 114: He opened his yap and started talking.
2006		C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 147: Shut your fat yap.
2009		T. Black Gutted 258: Shut yer fucking yap!

(b) (orig. US, also yop) idle, trivial chatter; an act of speaking (see cit. 1940).

1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. II 59: It took nigh upon three minutes afore the consarned fellers would stop their yop.
1900		Marvel 22 May 15: Come and [...] listen to my musical yap, while I unfolds my ideas.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 June 9/5: [from McClure’s Mag.] No, the master ‘didn’t get no yap out-a The Snitcher’ .
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 May 2nd sect. 9/1: They Say [...] That the foul language horror is still prevalent in Perth. That three particularly obscene words seem to be indispensable to street yap.
1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 302: Cut yer blasted yap, cancher, yer rotten old nuisance!
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘A Woman’s Way’ in Chisholm (1951) 89: Me yap’s a dud [...] My conversation ain’t the dinkum brand.
1934		O. Strange Sudden 8: Another yap outa yu an’ I’ll serve the other two the same.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 110: ‘One yap’ll be yore last,’ he warned.
1949		A.I. Bezzerides Thieves’ Market 81: You and your yap.
1958		H.S. Thompson letter 2 Apr. Proud Highway (1997) 114: Some wild yap about jail and court and lawyers.
1961		T.I. Rubin In the Life 61: She should talk, with her lousy yap.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 45: Let ’em go on with their yap.
1983		C. Heath A-Team 2 (1984) 126: Shut up! [...] I’m not in the mood for your yap.
1999		Guardian G2 22 July 22: Bags of yap.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 yap v. incessant chatter.
2010		K. Richards Life 484: [He] tried to tell me how to improve the track. Yap, yap, yap.

(c) (Irish, also yerp) a whining, complaining person.

1997

Share Slanguage.

(d) (US, also yapper, yap yap) a chatterer.

1903		D.S. Crumb ‘Dialect of Southeastern Missouri’ in DN II:v 337: yap, n. A noisy, worthless fellow. Don’t mind him; he’s nothing but a yap.
1907		P. Fitzpatrick Jock of the Bushveld 31: The questions sprung briskly, as only a ‘yapper’ puts them.
1909		Sun (NY) 18 July 29/1: ‘By Judas!’ he continued, ‘mebby that’s what’s the matter with them yaps’.
1921		Broadway Brevities Dec 28: Horrors of a Month. The election night yaps.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 311: Yapper, A: A windbag. A chatterer.
1926		J. Tully Jarnegan (1928) 100: I’m divorced from that slick-headed yap.
1978		T. Davies More Aus. Nicknames 80: The Yapper She can talk even when drinking.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 53: Yap Yap Talkative person.

(e) (US, also yapper) a tell-tale, an informer.

1912		A. Berkman Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 199: He’s the rottenest sneak in the dump, a swell-head yap.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice in Hamilton Men of the Und. 269: What a sucker I was to trust that yap.
c.1930		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 619: Y stands for Yaps with the rotten town guard.
1982		(ref. to 1928) in Lowenstein & Hills Under Hook 65: If I’d had my way I’d have blabbed the lot of them. Because I was a yapper.

(f) a sound.

1911		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 Days 🌐 Ch. ii: You make any more yaps like that an’ I’ll wing you for keeps with yore own gun!
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 86: The next guy who makes a yap takes off alone.

(g) (orig. US) a chat, a conversation.

1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 270: As soon as I finished my yap with Dave Lambert I was off to see Pat Regan.
2003		Brummagem Dict. 🌐 : yap vi. to talk idly; [...] ‘We ’ad a good ’ole yap.’.

(h) a petty swindler.

1989

J. Morton Lowspeak.

(a) (US, also yappo) a contemptible person, irrespective of class or background.

1885		Donaldsville Chief (LA) 26 Sept. 1/3: That’s the way to give it to them yaps out there.
1894		S. Crane in Plumbers’ Trade Journal 1 Jan. in Stallman (1966) 123: Get outa th’ way, you yap.
1908		K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xii: All the yaps out in that neighborhood are lining out for the spring plowing now while the yaps here are lining out for the spring millinery openings.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 221: He rounded up a lot of college fellows [...] yaps that live off their fathers’ money.
1914		Sun (NY) 10 May 8/2: The cheapest bunch of commercial yappos this side of South Bend, Ind.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice in Hamilton Men of the Und. 271: I’ll make those yaps sweat blood when I get out.
1937		J. Tully Bruiser 104: Them big yaps are duck soup for me.
1941		W. Winchell 12 Feb. [synd. col.] Playing stage-door Johnny and all-around yap.

(b) (US, also yawp) a derog. term for a peasant, a rustic simpleton; also attrib.

1890		C.H. Hoyt Texas Steer n.p.: Instead of his being the only ‘yap’, as he calls it, in Congress, there were about two hundred other members [R].
1899		Ade Fables in Sl. (1902) 76: The elderly Man was a Yap. He wore a Hickory Shirt, a discouraged Straw Hat, a pair of Barn-Door Pants clinging to one lonely Gallus.
1903		Inter Ocean (Chicago) 25 Jan. 34/6: Yap-like I asked who the something or other Eddie Glennon was.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 222: As unsuspecting a yap as one could wish to find.
1911		S. Ford Torchy 283: A big, overgrown, tow haired yawp that’s trailin’ along in the rear luggin’ a canvas valise.
1911		‘Sing Sing No. 57,700’ My View on Books in N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Apr. 5/2: Eben Holden [...] Irving Bacheller. Yap yarn. There's no kick coming from this one. It’s straight dope from the drop of the hat.
1919		in Columbia Press Yank Talk 11: What shall I buy when I’ve need of a tie? [...] Would a touch of sky blue and a green check or two Be suggestive of yeggs or of yaps?
1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 120: If any of these yaps (hicks) tries to get funny, just give him a dirty look and clam up.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Hobo’s Warning’ Hobo’s Hornbook 256: So all you flip yaps ease up on your traps.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 4: She wasn’t yap enough not to know that Silk Freeman was a big shot. And he was.
1947		T. Thursday ‘Billy the Kidder’ Blue Ribbon Western Nov. 🌐 Let the yap yoop his brains out.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 326: Yap, A stupid person.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 823: yap – A farmer; newcomer; greenhorn.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 429: yap. A dolt or other person easy to dupe; especially a country sucker, an inhabitant of yap town, a.k.a. dog town.

(c) (also yap-yap) attrib. use of sense 2b.

1902		‘Hugh McHugh’ Back to the Woods 63: The yap policeman was for taking Bunch right back to the donjon cell in the rear.
1967		J. Breslin World of Jimmy Breslin (1968) 45: They put me in the yap-yap class, the one that got all the dunces in it.

(d) (US Und.) a criminal’s victim.

1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 42: The citizens are the jayest push o’ yaps in this country.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Man Higher Up’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 152: I stand on a street corner and sell a solid gold diamond ring to a yap for $3.00.
1917		Sun (NY) 11 Feb. 11/2: This here yap can’t git away fr’m Arkansas City afo’ to-morrow.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 13: Let the yaps keep their money.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 164: Soon as we clean up this Yale yap.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 242/1: Yap. A stupid person of no consequence; a seemingly gullible prospective victim of thieves, especially swindlers.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 429: yap. A dolt or other person easy to dupe; especially a country sucker.

(e) (US tramp) a novice within the hobo community.

1929

V.W. Saul ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 346: Yap — A new, untutored arrival.