knap1
/nap
/noun archaic
The crest of a hill: a pathway winding around the knap of a green hill
Origin
Old English cnæpp, cnæp.
Rhymes
knap2
/nap/verb (knaps, knapping, knapped) [with object]
1 Architecture & Archaeology Shape (a piece of stone, typically flint) by striking it, so as to make a tool or weapon or a flat-faced stone for building walls: (as adjective knapped) buildings made of knapped flint...
- As soon as you come near to the South Downs, you get into the chalk lands, and all the older buildings begin to have knapped flints in them.
- The history of the knife is an intriguing one dating hack to simple flint tools knapped by prehistoric man.
- By around 5,000 BC a focus had developed at the confluence of the Nene and a small tributary, where people stopped to light fires, knap flint, and perform domestic tasks.
1.1 archaic Strike with a hard short sound; knock.
Derivatives
knapper
/ noun ...- At the moment, it is thought either to be a Neolithic axe rough-out or the work of a modern flint knapper.
- Once again, the Hatch quarry represents a prospect site where the prehistoric knappers came to obtain jasper nodules and tablets scattered across the surface.
- We now know more than the simple fact that prehistoric knappers obtained tool stone at the Hatch quarry.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'to knock, rap'): imitative; compare with Dutch and German knappen 'crack, crackle'.