threap

English

Alternative forms

threep, threip, threpe, threeap, thrape, threp, traep, traip, trep, trape

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /θɹiːp/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Rhymes: -iːp

Etymology 1

From Middle English threp (“a rebuke”), from the verb (see below).

Alternative etymology derives Middle English threp, from Old English *þrēap (“contention, strife”) (attested only as Old English þrēap, in the sense of "troop, band"), ultimately from the same Germanic origin below.

Noun

threap (plural threaps) (Scotland)

An altercation, quarrel, argument.
An accusation or serious charge.
- 1738, James Fraser, Memoirs of the Life of the Very Reverend Mr. James Fraser, page 181:
  And let us see what is to be done, and hear patiently all Assertions and Threaps; let this Rain fall to the Ground, and then fall thou to Exercise.
Stubborn insistence.
A superstition or freet.
- 1796, Thomas Muir, The Telegraph; a Consolatory Epistle:
  Then, (since my soul disowns the impious threap, That death is only an eternal sleep;) Then with an aching heart, I long to know, How we, my Henry, in the shades below, Shall bear the sceptre and the iron rod Of the grim Tyrant of the dark abode.

Etymology 2

From Middle English threpen (“to scold”), from Old English þrēapian (“to reprove, reprehend, punish, blame”), from Proto-West Germanic *þraupōn, from Proto-Germanic *þraupōną (“to punish”), from Proto-Germanic *þrawō (“torment, punishment”), from Proto-Germanic *þrawjaną (“to torment, injure, exhaust”), from Proto-Indo-European *trōw- (“to beat, wound, kill, torment”). Akin to Old English þrēagan (“to rebuke, punish, chastise”), þrēa (“correction, punishment”), þrōwian (“to suffer”). More at throe.

Verb

threap (third-person singular simple present threaps, present participle threaping, simple past and past participle threaped or threapt) (Scotland)

(transitive) To contradict.
- 1778, Nicholas Wilkinson, The Trial at Large of Nicholas Wilkinson:
  I told them I went to seek him, but they threaped me and said I did not.
To denounce.
- 1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, page 32:
  O he is attended vpon moſt Babilonically, and Xerxes ſo ouercloyd not the Helleſpont with his foyſtes, gallies, and brigandines, as he mantleth the narrow ſeas with his retinue, being not much behinde in the checkroule of his Ianiſſaries and contributories, with Eagle-ſoaring Bullingbrooke, that at his remouing of houſhold into baniſhment (as father Froyſard threapes vs downe) was accompanied with 40000, men wemen and children weeping, from London to the landes end at Douer.
To cry out; complain; contend.
To argue; bicker; scold; rebuke
- a. 1529, John Skelton, "The Old Cloak", in Thomas Percy (editor), Percy's Relics, published 1765
  It's not for a man with a woman to threap.
To affirm; to express with conviction.
- 1664, John Fullartoun, The Turtle-Dove:
  Come then, threap kindnesse yet apon thy King, Tell him that in the prison thou wilt sing His praises
- 1761, John Willison, Sacramental meditations and advices, page 173:
  Take faith with you, and the stronger it is, it will be the more agreeable present to Christ; put a firm trust and confidence in his blood and bowels, bode and threap kindness on him
- 1766, John Brown, An Exposition of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, page 565:
  It is useful sometimes to threap good upon people, providing it be done soberly, prudently, and not in a flattering way, speaking nothing but truth, and withal, doing is seasonably, when the doing thereof will not foster pride nor conceit in people, but will make way, and open a door for receiving the wholesome admonitions and profitable directionsl as the apsotle doth here threap good upon these Romans, to the end his freedom in speaking to them might be the better welcomed, and less exception might be made against it: And I myself am persuaded of you, &c.
- 1800, Allan Ramsay, The Poems of Allan Ramsay - Volume 1, page 262:
  While the young swankies on the green Took round a merry tirle: Meg Wallet wi' her pinky een Gart Lawrie's heart-strings dirle; And fouk wad threap, that she did green For what wad atar her skirle and skreigh some day.
To cozen or cheat.
- 1677, Richard Gilpin, Daemonologia Sacra:
  Thus are men threaped out of their own persuasions.
To maintain obstinately against denial or contradiction; to insist (on).
He threaped me down that it was so.
- 1727, Caleb Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum Alphabetice Dispositarum, page 110:
  I eat some of it so prepared in an English Man's House in this City, and who would threap me down, that it was Sampire, and so named in his Country of Lincolnshire.
- 1733, George Logan, The Humble and Modest Inquiry Concerning the Right and Power of Electing and Calling Ministers to vacant Chruches, Finished:
  Thus the Power of Truth has so great Influence upon you, as to make you decline the Debate, and to yield the Argument to me, and yet your inveterate Prejudices still prevail, and have the Mastery over you, to threap what you cannot defend, but will have others do it for you, who are no way interested;
- 1785, Robert Burns, Epistle To William Simson Schoolmaster, Ochiltree:
  Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk, / Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;

Derived terms

threaper

Anagrams

Tharpe, hapter, pather, tephra, teraph, therap