Faucet and tap both name the fitting that controls water flowing from a pipe, but faucet is the chiefly American word and tap is the term used in British English. Tap also does extra duty as a verb, covering everything from a light knock to phone surveillance.
The core difference
Faucet and tap describe the same water fitting, split mainly between American English (faucet) and British English (tap).
- faucet — chiefly US term for the fitting that controls water flow from a pipe: She turned off the faucet after washing her hands.
- tap — the British word for the same fitting, on a pipe or container, for liquid or gas: She turned on the kitchen tap to fill the kettle.
- tap — also a verb meaning to hit lightly, to secretly listen in on a line, or to draw on a resource: The company tapped into a new market overseas.
How to tell them apart
Faucet is the word you will meet in American writing, while tap is standard in British English for the same fitting on a sink, bath or container. Faucet comes from Old French fausset, of uncertain origin, possibly linked to Latin faux ("throat") or Old Norse fors ("waterfall"). Tap goes back to Old English tæppa, a stopper or plug for controlling liquid, the same root that gives us "tapster", someone who draws drinks from a barrel.
Because tap has so many other jobs as a verb, it rarely causes confusion with faucet in context; the mix-up is really a British-versus-American vocabulary choice rather than a meaning problem. Faucet, by contrast, sticks to the one job of naming the water fitting.
