- leap (v.)
- c. 1200, from Old English hleapan "to jump, spring clear of the ground by force of an initial bound; run, go; dance, leap upon (a horse)" (class VII strong verb; past tense hleop, past participle hleapen), from Proto-Germanic *hlaupan (source also of Old Saxon hlopan, Old Norse hlaupa, Old Frisian hlapa, Dutch lopen, Old High German hlouffan, German laufen "to run," Gothic us-hlaupan "to jump up"), of uncertain origin, with no known cognates beyond Germanic.
First loke and aftirward lepe [proverb recorded from mid-15c.]
Transitive sense "pass over by leaping" is from early 15c. Leap-frog, the children's game, is attested by that name from 1590s ("Henry V"); figurative use by 1704; as a verb from 1872. Related: Leaped; leaping.
- leap (n.)
- c. 1200, "the act or an act of leaping," from Old English hliep, hlyp (West Saxon), *hlep (Mercian, Northumbrian) "a leap, a bound, a spring; sudden movement; thing to leap from;" from Proto-Germanic *hlaupan (cognates: Old Frisian hlep, Dutch loop, Old High German hlouf, German lauf); from the root of leap (v.). Leaps has been paired with bounds since at least 1720.
