Revised as of
16 Jan 2023
Oh, boy . . . ” Jeez, you go rogue once and slaughter a bunch of humans after they torture your girlfriend, and suddenly you’re a leaper.“
I guess . . . although, if someone is killing people, they may well want to leap out of being arrested.
Somehow though, I don’t think that’s what this author thought.
On a PC note, “since the mid 20th century the word leper has increasingly been avoided because of the negative connotations of the sense person who is avoided or rejected by others. Today it is preferable to use expressions such as person with leprosy or person with Hansen’s disease, which is another name for leprosy“.
The social aspect of being a leper is still usable.
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Leaper | Leper |
|---|---|
_-_8904900869.jpg)
Jaguar Mk II Mascot “Jaguar Leaper”, 1964, by SG2012 is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. |
Keanu the Leper is courtesy of a private collection, which is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Morpheme: leap
Noun Plural: leapers Verb, intransitive & transitive (NOTE: This post will focus on leaper as a noun and not on the verb.) |
Noun
Plural: lepers |
Someone who springs, jumps, or bounds
One who leaps A kind of hooked instrument for untwisting old cordage
[Nautical] A sea that breaks on board a vessel
|
A person suffering from leprosy
|
| Examples: | |
| She is one hell of a leaper.
They are great leapers and swift runners, mostly frequenting open stony plains. They are good leapers and tree climbers. A sap-sucking bug that coats plants with wads of foamy spit has been crowned the insect world’s greatest leaper. Whoa, that salmon is a real leaper! It’s best to use a leaper to untwist that rope. Whew, that was some leaper! It almost washed me overboard. |
This island used to be a leper colony.
In the early 1930s, the lepers were removed from the island and all the buildings burnt down. The saint and the leper embrace, and the leper is miraculously healed. The story made her out to be a social leper. Smoking from the age of 16 means that I have spent a fortune over 24 years to smell like an ashtray, damage my health, and feel like a social leper. I am afraid that if I do speak out, against all that he has done, I will become a social leper. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: antileprosy, leprotic, leperous, leprous Noun: leprosy |
|
| History of the Word: | |
| Leap is from the Old English hlēapan (verb), hlȳp (noun), and is of Germanic origin and related to the Dutch lopen, the German laufen (verb), and the Dutch loop, the German Lauf (noun), all meaning run, also to lope.
The -er was added to leap to form leaper. |
Late Middle English is probably from an attributive use of leper meaning leprosy, from the Old French lepre, via the Latin from the Greek lepra, the feminine of lepros meaning scaly, and is from lepos, lepis meaning scale. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.
Resources for Leaper versus Leper
Apple Dictionary.com
Patterson, Howard. Patterson’s Illustrated Nautical Encyclopedia. Cleveland, Ohio: Marine Review Publishing Company, 1901. 160.
Your Dictionary: leaper, leapers
Pinterest Photo Credits:
People Scrambling to Get Away From a Leper, in Their Haste by Richard Tennant Cooper (1885-1957) is under the CC BY 4.0 license and was resized with the top and left edges feathered. Bull Leaper was cropped and transferred from en.wikipedia, then transferred to Commons by User:Mike Peel using CommonsHelper and is courtesy of the British Museum under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. It’s background was also removed and a shadow added Both are via Wikimedia Commons.
