Slang dictionary
slap
slaps [ slap ]
What does slap mean?
Slap is slang verb meaning āto be excellent or amazing.ā Itās especially used to refer to a song someone finds extremely good, as in This song slaps!
Translation? When a track makes you want to get up and move, it slaps.
While especially used of music, slaps is sometimes extended to anything considered excellent or amazing, e.g., This pasta slaps, The new season of the show slaps, orĀ This definition slaps hard af.
Example: Rihanna’s new single slaps so hard, I canāt stop listening to it!
Where does slap come from?
Generally, slap means āto strike sharply with an open handā or refers to such a hard blow so delivered. But what could this action have to do with groovy tunes?
Well, consider this: we call an extremely successful song a smash hit. And a song that we personally love? Itās our jam. Smash hit, jam, slapsāthese terms, and many more, use direct, smack-dab force, contact, and motion as metaphors for excellence.
As for slap itself, the association of the word slap with great qualities isnāt brand spanking new, exactly. It was an adjective for āfirst-rateā in the mid-1800s and an adverb, meaning āexcellently,ā even earlier, in the mid-1700s.
Slap appears to start getting applied to music, specifically, by at least the early 2000s. Now, the origin of slang, especially successful and widespread slang terms like slap, are indeed hard to pin down, but the musical slap is often credited to Bay Area hip-hop slang. (Hyphy, anyone?) It was first entered into Urban Dictionary in 2004.
So, a song that slaps is one that has a prominent beat, perhaps as if its deep bass metaphorically slaps you in the faceāor makes the speakers of your stereo thump when itās cranked up nice and loud, so much so that it makes you slap the roof of your car in excitement. The slang slap also calls up slap bass, a style of playing the bass guitar, especially in funk music, where the strings are slapped and plucked for a punchy effect.
The electronic music and news website This Song Slapsāw³ó“Ē²õ±š tagline is a slap-tacular āBringing Bass to Your Faceāāwas launched in 2015. Thanks to social media and the influence of hip-hop in popular culture, slaps became a part of the mainstream vernacular in the late 2010s.
Examples of slap
Who uses slap?
Slap is most widely used in reference to great music, especially individual songs but also performances and artists.
Iām addicted to
Every track slaps differently š— ADEWALE š (@blaQboiAR)
God this song slaps so hard.
— Shauna (@bigdumii)
As the slang has spread into the mainstream, however, slap is seeing increasing use in reference to anything one finds exceptional, from other media to food to personal achievements.
Iām only 3 issues in and it already slaps so hard
— Nas (@ymnknight)
Went to eat Jamaican for the first time. š¤¤ That food SLAPS!!!!!
— š»š (@coco_simone)
Seeing yourself become a better version of yourself slaps so hard. Itās so scary but amazing at the same time. š
— Sinethemba (@cnehshuga)
Grammar note: the slang slap is an intransitive verb (it doesnāt take an object), very frequently appears in the third-person singular present tense (e.g., it slaps), and is commonly modified with the adverbial phrase so ³ó²¹°ł»åĢżor similar terms.
A great song itself is sometimes referred to the nouns forms slap or slapper.
. and represent for the Bay Area and in her new video for "My Type"!! This song is a SLAP! šš
Watch:
— OnSMASH (@OnSMASH)
i have to confess that this song is a slapper
— jacob (@remiehhcrik)
Did you know ā¦ ?
There are many other slang terms that draw on force and motion to characterize great music, including bops, whips, and smacks. An awesome track can be called a banger.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of slap like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of slap that will help our users expand their word mastery.