zaphttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zap_int%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezap, int.
First published 1986; not fully revised

zapinterjection

slang (originally U.S.).
  1. 1.
    1929–
    Used to represent the sound of a ray gun, laser, bullet, etc.; also figurative, expressing any sudden or dramatic event.
    1. 1929
      Ahead of me was one of those golden dragon Mongols, with a deadly disintegrator ray... Br-r-rr-r-z-zzz-zap.
      P. F. Nowlan in Washington Post 7 May 16/3
    2. 1962
      The jokester, pretending to be a creature from outer space, pointed his cosmic ray gun (finger) at his friend's genitals and exclaimed, ‘Zap! You're sterile.’
      American Speech vol. 37 288
    3. 1967
      Shouting idiotic things and going, ‘Whoop,’ ‘Zap,’ and ‘Yap,’ all the time.
      L. Deighton, Only when I Larf (1968) xii. 160
    4. 1968
      Bang! Zap! Pow! With laser beams and cracking doomsday machines, the deadly-serious super-heroes.
      Maclean's March 77
    5. 1970
      I'm against the war in Vietnam. But I'm not among the people who say let's stop Vietnam, zap.
      Daily Telegraph 15 May (Colour Supplement) 34/4
    6. 1971
      Getting down to a blow job, she suddenly produces a razor and zap—the man bleeding and gushing blood, is screaming on the floor.
      Frendz 21 May 17/1
    7. 1974
      We have been told..we needn't worry, the sections are not being enforced. Then zap, another homosexual is denied entry for being honest.
      Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12 September 7/2
    8. 1978
      The solution receives a positive charge, the truck a negative charge. Zap! The primer and the GMC are joined with a magnetic-like bond.
      Fortune 18 December 101 (advertisement)
    9. 1985
      A staff meeting will be Wick just shooting out those things one after another—zap, zap, zap.
      Parade Magazine 31 March 9
  2. 2.
    1969–
    zap gun noun
    A ray gun or the like.
    1. 1969
      Billy's will was paralyzed by a zap gun aimed at him from one of the portholes.
      K. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five iv. 65
    2. 1976
      Plot is subordinated to character exploration, but there's more adventure in that than in many a zap-gun epic.
      Publishers Weekly 15 March 59/1
    3. 1977
      New York police have confiscated two space-age ‘zap’ guns from blind singer Stevie Wonder... The guns look like flashlights and fire two darts attached to 20 ft. thin copper wires.
      Sunday Sun (Brisbane) 30 January 7/1

zap, int. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.

zap, int. was last modified in July 2023.