Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English - lap

~1 n 1 »LEGS« the upper part of your legs when you are sitting down  (Come and sit on my lap, Ginny.) 2 »RACE« one journey around or along a running track, race course etc  (Hill finished a lap ahead of his team-mate. | do/run/swim a lap)  (Come on, let's do a few laps in the pool. | lap of honour BrE | victory lap AmE (=a lap that you do after winning)) 3 »PART OF JOURNEY« a part of a long journey  (The last lap of their journey was by ship.) 4 in the lap of luxury having an easy, comfortable life with plenty of money, possessions etc 5 in the lap of the gods if the result of something is in the lap of the gods, you do not know what will happen 6 drop/dump sth in sb's lap spoken to make someone responsible for dealing with something difficult  (Ben just dumped all this work in my lap and told me to get on with it.) ~2 v 1 »SEA/RIVER/LAKE« if water laps something or laps against something such as the shore or a boat, it moves against it or hits it in small waves + agains  (The water of the lake lapped gently against the rocks.) 2 »DRINK« if an animal laps something, it drinks it by making small tongue movements 3 »IN A RACE« a) to pass a competitor in a race after having completed a whole lap more than they have  (Casey gave up after being lapped twice.) b) to make a single journey around a track, race course etc in a particular time 4 »PARTLY COVER« technical if one thing laps another, a part of one covers part of the other; overlap1 5 »FOLD/WRAP« T always + adv/prep literary to fold or wrap something around something else - lapping n lap sth up phr v 1 to get a lot of pleasure and enjoyment from something, without worrying about whether it is good, true etc  (She seems to be lapping up all the attention she's getting. | They sat listening to his story, spellbound, lapping it up.) 2 to drink all of something eagerly