Nor safe their dwellings were, for sapped by floods,
Their houses fell upon their household gods.
--Dryden.
2. (Mil.) To pierce with saps.
3. To make unstable or infirm; to unsettle; to weaken.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind. --Tennyson.
Note: The ascending is the crude sap, the assimilation of
which takes place in the leaves, when it becomes the
elaborated sap suited to the growth of the plant.
2. The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
3. A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop. [Slang]
{Sap ball} (Bot.), any large fungus of the genus Polyporus.
See {Polyporus}.
{Sap green}, a dull light green pigment prepared from the
juice of the ripe berries of the {Rhamnus catharticus}, or
buckthorn. It is used especially by water-color artists.
{Sap rot}, the dry rot. See under {Dry}.
{Sap sucker} (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of small
American woodpeckers of the genus {Sphyrapicus},
especially the yellow-bellied woodpecker ({S. varius}) of
the Eastern United States. They are so named because they
puncture the bark of trees and feed upon the sap. The name
is loosely applied to other woodpeckers.
{Sap tube} (Bot.), a vessel that conveys sap.
Both assaults are carried on by sapping. --Tatler.
{Sap fagot} (Mil.), a fascine about three feet long, used in
sapping, to close the crevices between the gabions before
the parapet is made.
{Sap roller} (Mil.), a large gabion, six or seven feet long,
filled with fascines, which the sapper sometimes rolls
along before him for protection from the fire of an enemy.