sapping

English

Verb

sapping

1. present participle and gerund of sap

Noun

sapping (plural sappings)

1. The act by which something is sapped or depleted.
   • December 22, 1821, Joseph Story, Address Delivered Before the Members of the New-England Society, in Charleston

     [The government] may be destroyed by popular violence, or the madness of party, or the deeper sappings of corruption.

2. The act of excavating trenches.
3. The act of striking with a sap or club.
   • 1964, Raymond Chandler, Killer in the Rain:

     And when he had me up there he would sap me again and I wouldn't remember anything that happened in between the two sappings.