crap [LME] Crap is related to Dutch krappe, from krappen ‘pluck or cut off’, and perhaps also to Old French crappe ‘siftings’, Anglo-Latin crappa ‘chaff’. The original sense was ‘chaff’, later coming to mean ‘residue from rendering fat’ as well as ‘dregs of beer’. Current senses meaning ‘something of poor quality’, ‘rubbish’, ‘nonsense’, ‘excrement’, date from the late 19th century and share the notion of ‘rejected matter’. See also crabbed.