Paps

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Soft mounds of tissue located on the chest, often associated with female mammals, that produce milk for feeding their young
2. a vulgar or informal term for breasts, usually used in a casual or irreverent context
3. any prominent protuberance on the body, often used in a humorous or derogatory manner to describe such features

Etymology: "Paps" is the plural of "pap," and the word's history is a tangle that etymologists have never fully untangled. Its core sense, a soft food for infants, is very old, and the same baby-talk syllable turns up across many European languages: German "Pappe" meant porridge (and later wheatpaste and cardboard), Dutch "pap" meant porridge, and Latin "pappa" and Old French "papa" appear in similar forms. Many scholars think these are independent formations from the nursery sounds "pa" and "pap," rather than one word borrowed from another. The breast sense is where the story gets interesting. Old Swedish "papp" meant "breast, nipple," and dialect forms in Swedish, Danish ("patte"), and North Frisian ("pap," "pape," "papke") carry the same idea, which suggests the sense of food and the sense of the breast grew out of the same nursery vocabulary. A breast is, after all, where an infant first finds its pap. English uses the plural "paps" for breasts, a usage that has long had a faintly anatomical or old-fashioned tone.

Synonyms: nipple, teat