hasp
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
haspsimple
-
haspssimple
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have haspedperfect
-
has haspedperfect
-
am haspingprogressive
-
are haspingprogressive
-
is haspingprogressive
-
have been haspingperfect progressive
-
has been haspingperfect progressive
Past
-
haspedsimple
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had haspedperfect
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was haspingprogressive
-
were haspingprogressive
-
had been haspingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hasp
before 1000; Middle English; Old English hæsp, hæpse; cognate with German Haspe hasp; akin to Dutch haspel reel, Old Norse hespa skein, hasp
Explanation
A hasp is part of a latch or lock. Most hasps are flat metal plates with a hinge, often including a metal loop that a lock fits through. If you've ever used a padlock, you've also used a hasp (probably without knowing what to call it). The metal plate that opens and closes and is held shut once you insert your padlock? That's a hasp! Hasp is a verb too, meaning "lock by securing a hasp," although it's rarely used today. The origin of this word isn't clear, but we know it's related to the Norse hespa, "fastening."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
After an hour searching dusty corridors, I found a door with a smart padlock and the remains of a hasp lying on the floor beside it.
From Nature ● May 19, 2020
And then Matt hears the sound of the window hasp being turned and the sound of the window opening.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 31, 2019
If anyone had seen that the hasp lock was shut when the fire was put out, then that would prove that the boys had been locked in the shed, almost certainly by Graf.
From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2015
The garage door wasn’t locked; Gibson had the padlock on the door, but not through the hasp.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 24, 2014
But Aragon is a little lock-crazy: He has screwed a tiny hasp onto his plastic lunch box and hangs a combination lock there, because of the sodas he’s lost to pilfering officers, he says.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
Mr. Guffaw said, 'We know where these hasps are, but cannot reveal their whereabouts at present.'
From Time Magazine Archive
But a Woman's Defence League candidate has stepped in, to demand equal hasps for wives, in order to end the serfdom of married women.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Ministry of Bubbleblowing denied yesterday, with an oath, that the 15,000,000 missing hasps had been found in a field near Asminster.
From Time Magazine Archive
Other Germans were securing the hasps on the car doors with wire and spikes and other trackside trash.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
Tyrion counted six oaken chests with iron hasps.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Many dusty years have passed since the appropriation of this Davy Jones’s locker to any purpose, and during the whole period within the memory of living man, it has been hasped and padlocked.
From The Uncommercial Traveller by Dickens, Charles
The great padlock, however, on the former, with characteristic acuteness, was looked without being hasped, so that, in a few seconds, my old guide had undone all the fastenings, and we found ourselves under shelter.
From Maurice Tiernay Soldier of Fortune by Lever, Charles James
The door was hasped and fastened with a stick; precaution enough in such a place, and for all that it contained, too.
From St. Patrick's Eve by Lever, Charles James
In one of the attics stood a great hasped chest, wherein the dead woman's dresses were mouldering.
From An Isle in the Water by Tynan, Katharine
Half-way down the length of the train he found what he was looking for: a box car with its side-door hasped but not locked.
From The Real Man by Lynde, Francis
So Nicky-Nan contented himself with closing the door carefully and hasping it.
From Nicky-Nan, Reservist by Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir
Presently, hasping these things firmly in, she went to the door, and opened it a cautious crack.
From Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby by Norris, Kathleen Thompson
Bacon heard the rusty bolt shoot into its socket, and then the hasping and locking of the outside door, with a sensation of utter hopelessness.
From The Cavaliers of Virginia or, The Recluse of Jamestown. Vol. II by Caruthers, William A. (Alexander)
These were her thoughts as she went about the house, hasping windows and bolting doors, with a dreary sense of the futility of caution.
From Moor Fires by Young, E. H. (Emily Hilda)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
