- (especially British English) (North American English usually faucet)[countable] a device for controlling the flow of water from a pipe into a bath or sink
- bath taps
- the hot/cold tap (= the tap that hot/cold water comes out of)
- Turn the tap on/off.
- Don't leave the tap running.
- You have to run the tap a long time before the hot water comes.
- the sound of a dripping tap
- I put my head under the tap and let the cool water run over me.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- hot
- hot-water
- cold
- …
- turn
- turn off
- turn on
- …
- drip
- run
- leak
- …
- water
- washer
- [countable] a device for controlling the flow of liquid or gas from a pipe or container
- a gas tap
- beer taps
- [countable] a light hit with your hand or fingers
- tap on something He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned round.
- tap at something a tap at the door
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- gentle
- light
- little
- …
- give somebody/something
- feel
- hear
- …
- tap at
- tap on
- [countable] an act of fitting a device to a phone so that somebody’s phone calls can be listened to secretly
- a phone tap
- (also tap-dancing)[uncountable] a style of dancing in which you tap to the rhythm of the music with your feet, wearing special shoes with pieces of metal on the heels and toes
- (also flap)[countable] (phonetics) a speech sound that is produced by striking the tongue quickly and lightly against the part of the mouth behind the upper front teeth. The ‘t’ in later in American English is an example of a tap. Topics Languagec2
Word Originnoun senses 1 to 2 and noun sense 4 Old English tæppa ‘peg for the vent-hole of a cask’, tæppian ‘provide (a cask) with a stopper’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch tap and German, Zapfen (nouns). noun sense 3 and noun sense 5 Middle English: from Old French taper, or of imitative origin; compare with the verb clap and rap.
Idioms
See tap in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee tap in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishon tap
- available to be used at any time
- We have this sort of information on tap.
- beer that is on tap is in a barrel with a tap on it
- The pub has two sorts of beer on tap.
- (North American English) something that is on tap is being discussed or prepared and will happen soon
Check pronunciation:
tap