sapping

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of sap

noun

1. The act by which something is sapped or depleted.

   “December 22, 1821, Joseph Story, Address Delivered Before the Members of the New-England Society, in Charleston [The government] may be destroyed by popular violence, or the madness of party, or the deeper sappings of corruption.”

2. The act of excavating trenches.
3. The act of striking with a sap or club.

   “And when he had me up there he would sap me again and I wouldn't remember anything that happened in between the two sappings.”