dapper

Neat, trim.

Adjective

  1. Neat, trim.
    • This entrance is through a little courtyard, in which is the stable and coach-house combined, where Madame Perinere, a lady who paints the magic word "Modes" beneath her name on the door-post of number seventeen, keeps...
  2. Stylishly dressed, neatly dressed, spiffy.
    • “It is too bad that monsieur has been troubled,” said Tarzan, turning to the newspaper man. “I bid monsieur good evening,” and he bowed the dapper young man out of the room, and closed the door in his face. - 1913...
    • Going down the street, you would meet a typical commercial traveller, dapper and alert. - 1917, P. G. Wodehouse, The Man With Two Left Feet:
  3. Quick; little and active.

Origin

From Middle English daper (“pretty, neat”), from Middle Dutch dapper (“stalwart, nimble”), Old Dutch *dapar, from Proto-Germanic *dapraz (“stout; solid; 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’).

Forms

dapperer dapperest

Derived

Dapper Dan dapperling dapperly dapperness undapper

Noun

  1. A plimsoll.

    Synonyms: dap

Forms

dappers