Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Neatly dressed; trim.
- adj. Very stylish in dress.
- adj. Lively and alert.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Little and active; spruce; trim; smart; neat in dress or appearance; lively.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners
Etymologies
- Middle English daper, from Middle Dutch dapper "stalwart, nimble", from Proto-Germanic *dapraz ‘heavy; bold’ (compare German tapfer "bold", Norwegian daper "saddened, dreary"), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeb- ‘thick, heavy’ (compare Tocharian A tpär ‘high’, Latvian dàbls ‘strong’, Serbo-Croatian дебео (dèbeo) ‘fat’). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English daper, elegant, probably from Middle Dutch dapper, quick, strong. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Yes. sylpheed-claws in dapper is broken (IMAPS doesn't work).”
“But Dapper's CUPS bugs are nothing compared to bugs in OSX (notice how dapper is still under development, and OSX had it's share of versions).”
“Expect new version in dapper till end of the week, when I'll upload it.”
“Sylpheed-claws-gtk2 (the one in dapper) would crash.”
“He was the kind of delicate middle-aged man for whom the word dapper had been coined.”
“He is known as the dapper fashion professor who co-hosts Project Runway with Heidi Klum, and with the phenomenal success of the show, his career has skyrocketed into the big leagues.”
The Huffington Post: Tim Gunn Threw Up In A Parking Lot Before His First Day Of Teaching
“Anderson Cooper, the globetrotting anchor of CNN (or, as my daughter prefers to call the dapper journalist, "The Silver Fox") is fielding questions from some students at UCLA.”
“Mr Jones was a retired exciseman, and of the description of man known as dapper; he was a little, fat, chubby fellow, who dressed very smartly, always wearing white trousers in the summer, and a buff waistcoat, made so as to show as much shirt-front and as little waistcoat as possible.”
“He is not referring to dapper double-breasted suits, rather the notion that he himself has been "nothing but a brief elaboration of a tune".”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“Mr. Suleiman is known as a dapper dresser, preferring suits over military uniforms.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dapper’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 3)
fibers, gypsy, polymer, schism, syphilitic garden..., holocaust, scrutinant, contemplate, aftermath, consequence, deadlock, impasse and 151 more...
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Kingly epithets
Take one of CharlesFerdinand's excellent Merovingians or Goths, add a "the" and one of these descriptors, and presto, a character for your long-planned spoof fantasy novel.
unlikely, chuckleheaded, aloof, lacklustre, slow, murky, neurotic, clichéd, pediculous, dour, bungling, dandy and 23 more...
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pedantic words
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,..Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schooleboyes.
pedagogic, schoolmasterly, academic, bookish, donnish, dry as dust, dryasdust, pedantic, erudite, formal, inkhorn, learned and 65 more...
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Words to Whisper
fare-thee-well, boss of me, dapper, ingenuous, starflower, light out, tauntingly, romeo, parabolic, intuition, adient, delusion and 5 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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dandy's list
favourite words
cattywampus, wibble, fenagle, whisker, sneeze, wisteria, honeysuckle, clove, perihelion, glimmer, twilight, dusk and 264 more...
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dharma66's list
words that pique my interest either by meaning, pronunciation, or spelling, and words that otherwise tickle my fancy!!
pique, elusive, serendipity, nefarious, redundant, pseudoscientific, obsequious, flack, quandary, impervious, perchance, translucent and 168 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
grabbable, retuiteando, leaving, fantastic, absolutely, kurwa, hella, ridic, underpass, hate, interlude, plush and 2369 more... -
Quirkstyle
Fashion elegance, oddities, styles, and cool garments.
tatterdemalion, froufrou, gingham, argyle, corset, hoop skirt, pantaloons, bloomers, jaunty, seersucker, twill, ganguro and 126 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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Wordplay
reticent, slammerkin, moonstruck, zephyr, gallivant, hullabaloo, pandemonium, equestrian, wallflower, martyr, threadbare, treacherous and 180 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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collection
sanguine, vie, antebellum, glacial, treacly, iconoclast, lissom, anathema, serendipity, parsimonious, histrionic, contemptuous and 279 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dapper.
minouchette a flapper's father Oct 8, 2010
fbharjo original meant heavy and strong then later meant quick and nimble Jul 25, 2007