I honestly don’t remember why I was looking this up . . . but I’ll share the results with you anyway. 😉

Sappy in a figurative sense of “foolishly sentimental” has been around for quite a while! Dating from the 1660s, it comes from an intermediate meaning of “wet, sodden.” How we get, I guess, when we’re sappy. 😉 Interesting to note, for a while in earlier days, sappy could also mean “full of vitality” (that one’s from the 1550s) and, around 1620, “immature.”

Sap, as a figurative noun meaning “simpleton” is from around 1815. It was English and Scottish schoolboy slang, deriving from the idea that one had soft, sappy wood in their heads.

Have a great week!