slapper

Meaning

Noun

• One who, or that which, slaps.
• A prostitute.
• A woman of loose morals.
• A type of detonator which uses a powerful surge of electricity to vaporize a thin metal foil, propelling a larger piece of plastic film at a speed high enough to detonate an explosive upon impact.
• Anything monstrous; a whopper.

Origin

• slap + -er. For senses 2 and 3, the OED tentatively quotes the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang: "This working class term from East London and Essex is probably a corruption of shlepper or schlepper, a word of Yiddish origin, one of whose meanings is a slovenly or immoral woman."