Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Contest; attack.
  • noun Contradiction.
  • noun A vehement or pertinacious affirmation; an obstinate decision or determination.
  • noun A superstitious idea or notion; a freet.
  • To contradict.
  • To aver or affirm with pertinacious repetition; continue to assert with contrary obstinacy, as in reply to persistent denial: as, to threap a thing down one's throat.
  • To insist on.
  • To cry out; complain; contend; maintain.
  • To call; term.
  • To indulge in mutual recrimination or contradiction; contend; quarrel; bandy words; dispute.
  • To fight; battle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. & Scot. To contend obstinately; to be pertinacious.
  • noun Prov. Eng. & Scot. An obstinate decision or determination; a pertinacious affirmation.
  • transitive verb obsolete To call; to name.
  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. & Scot. To maintain obstinately against denial or contradiction; also, to contend or argue against (another) with obstinacy; to chide.
  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. To beat, or thrash.
  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. To cozen, or cheat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun an altercation, quarrel, argument
  • noun an accusation or serious charge
  • verb to scold, rebuke
  • verb to argue, bicker

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English threp ("a rebuke"), deverbal of Middle English threpen ("to scold"), from Old English þrēapian ("to reprove, reprehend, punish, blame"), from Proto-Germanic *þraupōnan (“to punish”), from Proto-Germanic *þrawō (“torment, punishment”), from Proto-Germanic *þrawēnan (“to torment, injure, exhaust”), from Proto-Indo-European *trōw- (“to beat, wound, kill, torment”). Akin to Old English þrēagan ("to rebuke, punish, chastise"), þrēa ("correction, punishment"), þrōwian ("to suffer"). More at throe.

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Examples

  • Indeed, ye’ll no hinder some to threap, that it was nane o’ the Auld Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in the Laird’s room, but only that wanchancy creature, the Major, capering on the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the Laird’s whistle that was heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the Laird himsell, if no better.

    Wandering Willie’s Tale 1921

  • He seemed to feel a strength that would have snapped them like pack threap.

    The Sea-Witch Or, the African Quadroon : a Story of the Slave Coast Maturin Murray Ballou 1857

  • Indeed, ye'll no hinder some to threap that it was nane o 'the auld Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in the laird's room, but only that wanchancy creature, the major, capering on the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the laird's whistle that was heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the laird himsell, if no better.

    Redgauntlet Walter Scott 1801

  • Indeed, ye’ll no hinder some to threap that it was nane o’ the auld Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in the laird’s room, but only that wanchancy creature, the major, capering on the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the laird’s whistle that was heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the laird himsell, if no better.

    Redgauntlet 2008

  • The reply was, “Yo’d better not; he’d threap yo’ down th’ loan.

    The Life of Charlotte Bronte 2002

  • "I weant say that I's fain to see you, but I've no call to threap wi 'waller-lads.

    Tales of the Ridings Frederic William Moorman 1895

  • The reply was, "Yo'd better not; he'd threap yo 'down th' loan.

    Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 1 Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

Comments

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  • Also spelled threpe.

    As a noun:

    (a) Contention, strife; battle; also, a battle, contest;

    without ~, without argument; without opposition;

    (b) insistence, importunity;

    October 21, 2011