Definition of "Jap"

He petered out under Pitty's savage look: Do you speak Jap? Do you understand the world from inside those bastards' slanty-eyed little head-lopping poem-writing minds?

2007, Les A. Murray, Fredy Neptune, page 239

He said it in Japanese, which surprised the boy and stunned Cullen.“You speak Jap?” asked Cullen.“Looks like it, doesn't it?”

2012, Robert Conroy, Rising Sun

Among our Japs on board are two returning from Italy, where they have been with silk-worms' eggs, on cards, to sell. This has become a great speculation, and the Japs are going into it with zeal. The Japs almost always—always when they can—take cabin passages ; the Chinese seldom, or never.

1872, James Brooks, A Seven Months' Run, Up, Down, Around the World‎

We had to kill 110,000 Japanese before we took Okinawa, and when the officers of the Japanese are killed- or defeated- they commit suicide. They cost us 12,000 men and they had to kill 110,000 Japs. And it's a terrible thing- don't know what you're gonna do with any crazy outfit like that except all you can do is to destroy them, and that's too bad.

1964, Harry S. Truman, 1:38 from the start, in MP2002-288 Former President Truman Discusses the Battle of Okinawa‎, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162

American officers have observed how Chinese troops stationed at American air bases have frequently refused to shoot at Japanese raiding planes. Asked by an American officer for the reason for this behavior, a Chinese officer at Lao-ho-k’ou air base in Hupeh answered (November 1944): “Well you see, if we shot down a Jap plane, the Japs would be angry and would take revenge and return and bomb the city and do a lot of damage.”

1968, Lyman P. Van Slyke, editor, The Chinese Communist Movement: A Report of the United States War Department, July 1945‎, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, page 90

A soldier might grab his rifle and batter his way to the heart of some Jap position. Back home they gave him all sorts of medals but his companions dismissed him as the poor bastard who finally went Asiatic.

1951, James Albert Michener, The Voice of Asia, page 6