tapping

plural tappings

1. countableuncountableAn act of making a light hit or strike against something.

   As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it […]

   1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   She has rapid and powerful footwork, but she doesn’t wow you with any special trills or woodpecker tappings.

   2009 June 26, Alastair Macaulay, “Leading the Audience Into Flamenco’s Heart”, in New York Times

2. countableuncountableentertainmentA guitar technique in which the strings are tapped against the fingerboard
3. countableuncountableThe process by which a resource is tapped or exploited.

   Competitive tappings of a common oil pool can lead only to waste and overproduction, unless rigidly regulated […]

   1938, Paul Burke Jacobs, Harry Paul Newton, Motor Fuels from Farm Products, page 99

4. countableuncountablebusinessA connection made to some point between the end terminals of a transformer coil or other component.

   The essential feature is that two adjacent transformer tappings are connected to the load simultaneously, each connection having a self-excited transductor in series; […].

   1962 June, “Talking of Trains: Notable new locomotives”, in Modern Railways, page 373

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of tap