different between tapper vs zapper

English

Etymology

tap +? -er.

Pronunciation

Noun

tapper (plural tappers)

1. One who makes a tapping noise.
   • 1836-37, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

     A low tap was heard at the room door. Mr. Bob Sawyer looked expressively at his friend, and bade the tapper come in […]

2. A tap-dancer.
3. A phone tapper or wiretapper.
4. (baseball slang) A weakly hit ground ball.
5. (telegraphy) In early wireless telegraphs, a device used to shake loose the filings of a coherer.
6. (Britain, dialect) The lesser spotted woodpecker.
7. (US) A tapster.

Derived terms

• toe tapper, toe-tapper
• wheeltapper, wheel-tapper

Anagrams

• Trappe

Danish

Noun

tapper

1. indefinite plural of tap

Verb

tapper

1. present of tappe

Middle English

Noun

tapper

1. Alternative form of taper

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish dapper, from Middle Low German dapper, tapper. Further origin disputed. Possibly cognate with Old Norse dapr (“heavy”), German tapfer (“dauntless”) and English dapper.

Adjective

tapper (comparative tapprare, superlative tapprast)

1. brave

   Synonyms: modig, djärv, orädd

Declension

Derived terms

• tapperhet

References

• tapper in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• tapper in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• tapper in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• tapper in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)

English

Etymology

zap +? -er

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: z?p??(r), IPA^(key): /?zæp.?(?)/
• Rhymes: -æp?(r)

Noun

zapper (plural zappers)

1. (colloquial) A remote control for a television.

   The news is starting on the other channel; hand me the zapper.

2. A device that electrocutes ("zaps") with a high voltage, e.g. a bug zapper.
3. (figuratively, by extension) Anything that exterminates.
   • 1989, Microtimes (volume 6, page 140)

     If games are your life, the choice of a joystick is desperately important. Casual alien-zappers can get by with the cheapest generic Taiwanese clone-stick […]

Translations

French

Etymology

From English zap

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /za.pe/

Verb

zapper

1. to channel-hop, channel surf
2. (figuratively) to dither, change one's opinion rapidly, vacillate
3. to skip over
4. (familiar) to forget

Conjugation

Further reading

• “zapper” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).