King James Bible Dictionary

LEAP, verb intransitive [Latin labor, perhaps. Heb.]

1. To spring or rise from the ground with both feet, as man, or with all the feet, as other animals; to jump; to vault; as, a man leaps over a fence, or leaps upon a horse.

A man leapeth better with weights in his hands than without.

2. To spring or move suddenly; as, to leap from a horse.

3. To rush with violence.

And the man in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them and overcame them - Acts 19:16.

4. To spring; to bound; to skip; as, to leap for joy.

5. To fly; to start. Job 41:19.

He parted frowning from me, as if ruin leaped from his eyes.

[Our common people retain the Saxon aspirate of this word in the phrase, to clip it, to run fast.]

LEAP, verb transitive

1. To pass over by leaping; to spring or bound from one side to the other; as, to leap a wall, a gate or a gulf; to leap a stream. [But the phrase is elliptical, and over is understood.]

2. To compress; as the male of certain beasts.

LEAP, noun

1. A jump; a spring; a bound; act of leaping.

2. Space passed by leaping.

3. A sudden transition of passing.

4. The space that may be passed at a bound.

'Tis the convenient leap I mean to try.

5. Embrace of animals.

6. Hazard, or effect of leaping.

7. A basket; a weel for fish. [Not in use.]

LE'APER, noun One that leaps. A horse is called a good leaper

LE'AP-FROG, noun A play of children in which they imitate the leap of frogs.

LE'APING, participle present tense Jumping; springing; bounding; skipping.

LE'APINGLY, adverb By leaps.

LE'AP-YEAR, noun Blissextile, a year containing 366 days; every fourth year, which leaps over a day more than a common year. Thus in common years, if the first day of March is on Monday, the present year, it will, the next year, fall on Tuesday, but in leap-year it will leap to Wednesday; for leap-year contains a day more than a common year, a day being added to the month of February.