leap v.
to have sexual intercourse with; thus occas. use as n.
The Four Elements line 1342: sensuall appetyte And I can lepe it lustily. | ||
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. | ||
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. | ||
[ | Bartholomew Fair IV iv: How now, Whit? Close vapours, stealing your leaps? Covering in corners, ha?]. | |
Duchess of Malfi II v: Till I know who leaps my sister, I’ll not stir . | ||
Bird in a Cage III i: [He is] a very satyr, he leaps all comes near him. | ||
Wit Restor’d (1817) 141: Here are hot Boyes have backs like bulls, At first sight can leap lasses. | ‘The Bursse of Reformation’||
‘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. | ||
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. | ||
‘Colin’ in 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. | ||
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. | ||
Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 33: But he with full intent to leap her / Swore like a trooper he would keep her. | ||
Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies 42: [S]he will bear a flying leap for 10s. 6d. |
In compounds
a brothel.
Henry IV Pt 1 I ii: Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses. | ||
Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 7: [as cit. c.1597]. |
In phrases
to have sexual intercourse.
in 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. | ||
Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 22: Aveugles (loger les). To copulate; ‘to take a leap in the dark’. | ||
Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 189: To leap up a ladder is for intimacy to take place. |
SE in slang uses
In derivatives
(US drugs) under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
‘Sl. Expressions for Drunk’ in New Republic in AS XVI:1 (1941) 70/1: [...] leaping. | ||
Opium Addiction in Chicago 201: Leaping. A person who is excessively filled with drugs is said to be leaping. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 143: leapin An addict full of narcotics. | ||
Traffic In Narcotics 312: leapin. An addict who is under the influence of drugs. | ||
Narcotics Lingo and Lore 100: Leaping and stinking – Of a drug addict, in the treacherous sorcery of a narcotic ingestion. | ||
ONDCP Street Terms 14: Leaping — Under the influence of drugs:. |
In compounds
(US) a small car, usu. a Model-T Ford.
Judge (NY) 91 July-Dec. 31: Leapin' Lena - Flivver. | ||
Old Bunch (1946) 165: Sam heard a terrific honk...and barely jumped aside in time to escape a Leaping Lena. | ||
DSUE (8th edn) 672: ca. 1915. |
In phrases
(US black) a ritual challenge to a fight.
Runnin’ Down Some Lines 44: Brother you leap and you will receive. |
to be starving.
Bibliotheca Scholastica Instructissima 94: Hee will leape at a crust. | ||
Polite Conversation 11: I believe, Colonel, Mr. Neverout can leap at a Crust better than you. | ||
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. |
to be hanged [the grass surrounding the gallows].
Gammer Gurton’s Needle in Whitworth (1997) V ii: I will go near for this to make ye leap at a daisy. | ||
Blacke Bookes Messenger 2: But at last hee leapt at a daysie for his loose kind of life. |
to be hanged.
Common Cries of London in Book of Roxburghe Ballads (1847) 215: For many a proper man... Doth leap a leap at Tyburn which makes his neck to crack . | ||
[ | Era 26 Sept. 5/3: A new drama [...] ‘Jack Ketch, or a Leap from Tyburn tree,’ was produced]. |
(Aus.) to marry illegally.
Aus. Sl. Dict. 44: Leap the Book, a false marriage. |
In exclamations
(US) an excl. expressing surprise.
Classics in Sl. 7: Leapin’ Tuna, alongside of this knock-out, Venus D. Milo was a scrub woman! | ||
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! | ||
Pinktoes (1989) 192: And great leaping catfish! She had gained forty-two pounds. |