Spelling Is "leapt" a word?

Pretty straightforward question. I can't seem to find it in any online dictionary. All results are "leaped". If it's not, am I as a writer allowed to coin it?

 

It is correct to use "leapt' - I think "leapt" is more British, and "leaped" is more American

 

I actually had a similar thread! Here:
https://www.writingforums.org/threads/is-this-a-word.177766/

I had no idea about the American v. British thing. But I always write 'leapt'. It just FEELS right. Yet, my friend the other day was laughing because of some of my 'British spellings'. I have dyslexia. If I can write something that MAKES sense, it a win. LOL.

 

I like to use it sometimes. Like Gravy said, it feels right in some cases.

 

Yeah, to me, "leapt" implies that the leap is more frantic like jumping from a sinking boat to safety or something like that, while "leaped" feels more mundane and normal.

 

I think "leapt" is the more archaic version of the word.

"She dreamt that as she slept, she leapt into the water with ease."

Nowadays we might use "leaped" and "dived" and "dreamed" but "slept" somehow hangs doggedly on.

 

I slept while you kept the floor swept, then I wept when you did schlep and crept into the abyss where I had leapt. If you like the sound of it, use your creative license.

 

I'd forgotten about "wept" and "swept." Two more words that refuse to be supplanted by more modern regular forms. I think "crept" has largely been replaced by "creeped" as "leapt" has been replaced by "leaped."

This reminds me of a conversation I heard in the Society of Creative Anachronism, where some people were trying to replace the word "children" with something more medieval-sounding (or "forsoothly," as they liked to say) in their heraldic announcements. When someone suggested the word "smalls" instead, there was a great outcry, with somebody else pointing out that "smalls" was an archaic term for "underwear."

And somebody else (who might have been myself) noted that there was nothing remotely modern about the word "children." It even used the old Anglo-Saxon form of forming plurals with "-en" as with "oxen" and "brethren" (to name to other archaic forms that have survived). "How much more medieval do you want to get?" I asked.

The fact that I learned German at an early age, where the "-en" form is still commonplace, may have helped my insight.