Etymology
1. O.E.
hleapan "to jump, run, leap" (class VII strong verb; past tense
hleop, pp.
hleapen), from P.Gmc.
*khlaupan (cf. O.S.
hlopan, O.N.
hlaupa, O.Fris.
hlapa, Du.
lopen, Ger.
laufen "to run," Goth.
us-hlaupan "to jump up"), of uncertain origin, with no known cognates beyond Germanic. The noun is O.E.
hlyp (Anglian
*hlep).
Leap year (M.E.) so called from its causing fixed festival days to "leap" ahead one day in the week.
Leap-frog, the children's game, is attested from 1599.
2. From Middle English lepen, from Old English hlēapan, from Proto-West Germanic *hlaupan, from Proto-Germanic *hlaupaną. Doublet of lope, lowp, elope, gallop, galop, interlope, and loop.
3. Cognate with North Frisian laap, luup, luupe (“to jog, run, walk”), Saterland Frisian lope, loope (“to run”), West Frisian ljeppe (“to jump”), Dutch lopen (“to run; to walk”), German laufen (“to run; to walk”), Limburgish loupe (“to jog, run, walk”), Low German lopen, loupen (“to run”), Luxembourgish lafen (“to run”), Vilamovian łaojfa (“to run”), Danish løbe (“to run”), Faroese leypa (“to jump”), Icelandic hlaupa (“to run; to jump”), Norwegian Bokmål løpe (“to run”), Norwegian Nynorsk laupa, laupe, løpa, løpe (“to run”), Swedish löpa (“to run”), from Proto-Indo-European *klewb- (“to spring, stumble”) (compare Lithuanian šlùbti ‘to become lame’, klùbti ‘to stumble’). See: Proto-Germanic '
*hlaupaną', Frisian, Saterlandic 'lope', Dutch '
lopen', German, old spelling '
laufen', Low Saxon 'lopen', Luxembourgish '
lafen', Wymysorys '
łaojfa', Danish '
løbe', Faroese '
leypa', Icelandic '
hlaupa', Norwegian '
løpe', Norwegian, nynorsk '
laupa', Swedish '
löpa'.
Verbs referencing "leap"
German, old spelling
laufen, Low Saxon lopen, Danish
løbe, Alemannic German
laufe, Luxembourgish
lafen, Alemannic German
lauffe, German, Pennsylvania
laafe, German, old spelling
lüpfen, Cimbrian loavan, Norwegian, nynorsk
laupa, Cimbrian lóofan, Bavarian laffa.