slaphappy
adjective
Did you know?
Slaphappy hits a lot of the same spots as "punch-drunk": when you suffer a blow to the head, you become confused and silly for a while. The "dazed and confused" sense of "slaphappy" first appeared in English in 1936, and by the following year it was being used to describe those who behave with such abandon it’s as though they’ve had the common sense knocked out of them. A 1937 article in the New York Herald Tribune called Ernest Hemingway, a writer known to have had an adventurous lifestyle, "the slaphappy litterateur." Often you will see the word spelled with a hyphen ("slap-happy"), but the closed compound is more common.
Synonyms
Examples of slaphappy in a Sentence
Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2022
Drake appears to have commissioned TikTok-baiting choreography and then worked backwards from there, but the sound of the song is not in the slaphappy mode of Gen Z social media.
—Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 4 May 2020
Having fitted his kit with old-fashioned calfskin heads, Starr’s sturdy, slaphappy drumming achieves a newfound warmth and depth.
—Jonathan Gould, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2019
This sunny spirit surely comes in handy when he is stuck in D.C., with nothing to do but tweet infuriating fantasias that may be an indication of delusions the slaphappy Dr. Jackson didn’t catch.
—Lynn Yaeger, Vogue, 21 Jan. 2018
Breaking things down with a simple pounding electro-pop rhythm laced with slaphappy synths, the track is a festive anthem for women.
—Tamar Herman, Billboard, 11 Aug. 2017
Indeed, George Antrobus himself is a slaphappy inventor.
—Cynthia Zarin, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2017
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Cite this Entry
“Slaphappy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slaphappy. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.
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