läppern

German

Etymology

16th century, from now obsolete lappen (to slurp) +‎ -ern (iterative suffix), the former from Middle Low German lāpen (to slurp), from Proto-West Germanic *lapōn. The modern sense developed via “to eat [soup] in small sips”.

Cognate with Middle High German laffen, Middle Dutch lapen (cf. modern leppen, lebberen), English lap. Forms with -pp- also occur in Upper German dialects, where they may be independent onomatopoeias and/or influenced by Romance (cf. Italian lappare).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈlɛpərn/, [ˈlɛ.pɐn]
  • Audio:(file)

Verb

läppern (weak, third-person singular present läppert, past tense läpperte, past participle geläppert, auxiliary haben)

  1. (reflexive, somewhat informal) to mount up from small individual amounts to a large sum
    30 Cent klingt wenig, aber aufs Jahr gerechnet läppert sich das.
    30 cents appears to be little, but if you calculate it per year it mounts up.

Conjugation

See also

Further reading

  • läppern” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
  • läppern” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon