lap against

lap against (something)

Of water, to break, beat, or splash gently against something, as due to a current or tide. I love sleeping out on my uncle's boat at night, with the waves lapping against the hull.
See also: lap
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

lap (up) against something

[for waves] to splash gently against something. The waves lapped up against the shore softly. The waves lapped against the side of the boat all night long, and I couldn't sleep.
See also: lap
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • lap against (something)
  • slosh
  • slosh around
  • slop around
  • pat (someone or something) on (something or some place)
  • pat on
  • dab at
  • dab at (something)
  • slosh through
  • slosh through (something)
References in periodicals archive
It could sail up the Thames to lap against Whitehall.
"On other mornings the loch water seems to lap against the windowsill.
While the boy rows toward the moon's reflection shimmering in the lake, the waves lap against the boat with a 'wish-wish ' sound.
Crystal blue waters lap against immaculate white sand and lull one to rest and relax.
Bedoya put the boy on his lap against his wishes and engaged in "unwanted and deviant physical contact" with the boy at school and during school hours, the suit alleges.
The museum would have occupied three piers south of the Brooklyn Bridge."He has raised the horizon of the water, in waves that lap against the base of the cliffs," wrote Herbert Muschamp, who was then an architecture critic at The Times; others effused that Gehry's titanium nimbus, four times the size of Frank Lloyd Wright's uptown spiral, would rival the Statue of Liberty as a New York landmark.
have shown that cell wall melanin also blocks functional LAP against A.
They might look calm and peaceful as they gently lap against Germany's shores.
There are five exquisite restaurants in the resort, three of which are set right on the beach, allowing you to dine as the sun sets and the waves lap against the shore.
But ever since then, Tata Steel Europe, which Corus became, has been hit by falling demand and cut-throat Chinese competition with steel prices falling and rising like the tides which lap against the Port Talbot plant's Morfa Beach.
Every time I come back there's a feeling of Belfast and myself, we're moving forward and up."There's something stirring in Daniel's words, wise beyond his years, as the gentle waves of Belfast Lough lap against the disused slipways and wharfs, or the beaches further out at Helen's Bay near where he grew up.
As the waves lap against the beach and the seasons wax and wane, so has a French court found the Cameroonian actor, comedian, and recidivist bigot Dieudonne M'bala M'bala guilty of defamation, libel, and incitement to hatred and racial discrimination.
The fluid, transformative possibilities of water lap against the psychologically freighted bedscapes.
On the storied British circuit, which was slowly drying up after heavy rain, Porsche works driver Richard Lietz (Austria) clinched his first pole of the year for Porsche in the GTE Pro class in the very last lap against strong opposition from Ferrari and Aston Martin.
There was nothing better than listening to the merry din and feeling the cold wind lap against my cheeks while I ate some of the mangoes that the stalls sold.