Green’s Dictionary of Slang

leap v.

[SE leap, of an animal, to copulate]

to have sexual intercourse with; thus occas. use as n.

[UK]J. Rastell The Four Elements line 1342: sensuall appetyte And I can lepe it lustily.
[UK]Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing V iv: Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable cow; And some such strange bull leap’d your father’s cow, And got a calf in that same noble feat, Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.
[UK]Beaumont & Fletcher Scornful Lady III ii: You old he-goat, you dried ape, you lame stallion, Must you be leaping in my house? your whores, Like fairies dance their night-rounds, without fear.
[[UK]Jonson Bartholomew Fair IV iv: How now, Whit? Close vapours, stealing your leaps? Covering in corners, ha?].
[UK]Webster Duchess of Malfi II v: Till I know who leaps my sister, I’ll not stir .
[UK]J. Shirley Bird in a Cage III i: [He is] a very satyr, he leaps all comes near him.
[UK]Mennis & Smith ‘The Bursse of Reformation’ Wit Restor’d (1817) 141: Here are hot Boyes have backs like bulls, At first sight can leap lasses.
[UK] ‘On the Happy Memory of Alderman Hoyle’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) I 288: And to their Childrens credits and their Wives / Be it still said, they leap fair for their lives.
[UK]Etherege She Would if She Cou’d III iii: She’s so bonny and brisk, / How she’d carvet and frisk, / If a man were once mounted upon her! / Let me have but a leap / Where ’tis wholesom and cheap / And a fig for your Person of Honour.
[UK] ‘Colin’ in Wilson Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 25: She knew his ways and could comply / With all decays of lechery; Had often licked his amorous sceptre / Until the jaded stallion leapt her.
[UK]London Jilt pt 1 24: The Rumour ran abroad amongst the Lovers of Gallantry that I was ready for the Sport, which made several of them come to our House, to see if they could attain a Leap with me.
[UK]Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 33: But he with full intent to leap her / Swore like a trooper he would keep her.
[UK]Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies 42: [S]he will bear a flying leap for 10s. 6d.

In compounds

In phrases

leap in the dark (v.) (also leap up a ladder, take a leap in the dark)

to have sexual intercourse.

[UK] in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 125: Then leaps in the Dark, and his Exit he makes, / What Death can compare with the jolly Town-Rakes.
[UK]Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 22: Aveugles (loger les). To copulate; ‘to take a leap in the dark’.
[US]Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 189: To leap up a ladder is for intimacy to take place.

SE in slang uses

In derivatives

leaping (adj.)

(US drugs) under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

[US] ‘Sl. Expressions for Drunk’ in New Republic in AS XVI:1 (1941) 70/1: [...] leaping.
[US]B. Dai Opium Addiction in Chicago 201: Leaping. A person who is excessively filled with drugs is said to be leaping.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 143: leapin An addict full of narcotics.
[US]Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 312: leapin. An addict who is under the influence of drugs.
[US]J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore 100: Leaping and stinking – Of a drug addict, in the treacherous sorcery of a narcotic ingestion.
[US]ONDCP Street Terms 14: Leaping — Under the influence of drugs:.

In compounds

leaping lena (n.) [its bumpy motion]

(US) a small car, usu. a Model-T Ford.

[US]Judge (NY) 91 July-Dec. 31: Leapin' Lena - Flivver.
[US]M. Levin Old Bunch (1946) 165: Sam heard a terrific honk...and barely jumped aside in time to escape a Leaping Lena.
[UK]Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 672: ca. 1915.

In phrases

leap at a crust (v.)

to be starving.

T. Draxe Bibliotheca Scholastica Instructissima 94: Hee will leape at a crust.
[UK]Swift Polite Conversation 11: I believe, Colonel, Mr. Neverout can leap at a Crust better than you.
[UK]Bath Chron. 21 Nov. 7/5: How many [...] have been fastidious of their diet, which have come to leap at a crust, to beg their bread.
leap at Tyburn (v.) [Tyburn n.]

to be hanged.

[UK]Common Cries of London in Collier Book of Roxburghe Ballads (1847) 215: For many a proper man... Doth leap a leap at Tyburn which makes his neck to crack .
[[UK]Era 26 Sept. 5/3: A new drama [...] ‘Jack Ketch, or a Leap from Tyburn tree,’ was produced].

In exclamations

leaping lizards! (also leaping catfish! ...tuna!) [coined in the comic strip L’il Orphan Annie by Harold Gray (1894–1968)]

(US) an excl. expressing surprise.

[US]H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 7: Leapin’ Tuna, alongside of this knock-out, Venus D. Milo was a scrub woman!
[US]Laurents & Sondheim West Side Story II ii: My parents treat me rough. [...] They didn’t wanna have me, / But somehow I was had. / Leapin’ lizards, that’s why I’m so bad!
[US]C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 192: And great leaping catfish! She had gained forty-two pounds.