chop

• (UK) enPR: chŏp, IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɒp/
• (US) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɑp/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Hyphenation: chop
• Rhymes: -ɒp

From Middle English choppen, chappen (“to chop”), of uncertain origin, possibly onomatopoeic, or a variant of chap (“to become cracked”).

Cognate with Scots chap (“to chop”). Compare also Saterland Frisian kappe, kapje (“to hack; chop; lop off”), Dutch kappen (“to chop, cut, hew”), German Low German kappen (“to cut off; clip”), German kappen (“to cut; clip”), German dialectal chapfen, kchapfen (“to chop into small pieces”), Albanian copë (“piece, chunk”), Old English *ċippian (in forċippian (“to cut off”)). Perhaps related to chip.

chop (countable and uncountable, plural chops)

2. A cut of meat, often containing a section of a rib.

   I only like lamb chops with mint jelly.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 18:

     Of the two fried chops served him for breakfast he ate one and gave Edmund the other, and put a buttered sandwich of bread in his pocket against the accidents of travel.

   • 1957, J. D. Salinger, “Zooey”, in Franny and Zooey, published 1961:

     I was standing at the meat counter, waiting for some rib lamb chops to be cut.

3. A blow with an axe, cleaver, or similar implement.

   It should take just one good chop to fell the sapling.

4. (martial arts) A blow delivered with the hand rigid and outstretched.

   A karate chop.

5. Ocean waves, generally caused by wind, distinguished from swell by being smaller and not lasting as long.
6. (poker) A hand where two or more players have an equal-valued hand, resulting in the chips being shared equally between them.

   With both players having an ace-high straight, the pot was a chop.

7. (informal, with "the") Termination, especially from employment; the sack.
8. (Australia, New Zealand) A woodchopping competition.
   • 1924 October 6, The Examiner, Launceston, page 2, column 6:

     E, C. McsEnulty, who won the chop at the show on Thursday, cut through a foot lying block in 34 seconds[.]

9. (dated) A crack or cleft; a chap.
10. (uncountable) Aircraft turbulence.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:chop.

• (dismissal, especially from employment (informal)): axe, pink slip, sack

• → Japanese: チョップ

chop (third-person singular simple present chops, present participle chopping, simple past and past participle chopped)

1. (transitive) To cut into pieces with short, vigorous cutting motions.

   chop wood; chop an onion

2. (transitive) To sever with an axe or similar implement.

   Chop off his head.

3. (transitive, figurative) To separate or divide.

   We should chop off some of that department's budget.

4. (transitive) to give a downward cutting blow or movement, typically with the side of the hand.
5. (transitive, baseball) To hit the ball downward so that it takes a high bounce.
6. (poker) To divide the pot (or tournament prize) between two or more players. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
7. (intransitive) To make a quick, heavy stroke or a series of strokes, with or as with an ax.
8. (intransitive) To do something suddenly with an unexpected motion; to catch or attempt to seize.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     Out of a Greediness to get both, he Chops at the Shadow, and Loses the Substance.

9. (intransitive) To interrupt; with in or out.
   • 1550, Hugh Latimer, Sermon Preached before King Edward:

     This fellow […] interrupted the sermon, even suddenly chopping in.

10. (transitive, Hong Kong) To stab.
    • 1959 June 8, China Mail, page 10:

      A man had chopped a Sanitary Department coolie to death after an argument about money, Supreme Court was told today.

11. (computing, transitive, Perl) To remove the final character from (a text string).

    Coordinate term: chomp

12. (slang, transitive) To manipulate or separate out a line of cocaine.

    He chopped out a fat line.

Uncertain, perhaps a variant of chap (“cheap”). Compare Middle English copen (“to buy”), Dutch kopen (“to buy”).

chop (third-person singular simple present chops, present participle chopping, simple past and past participle chopped)

1. (obsolete) To exchange, to barter; to swap.
   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica:

     this is not to put down Prelaty, this is but to chop an Episcopacy; this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another, this is but an old canonicall sleight of commuting our penance.

2. To chap or crack.
3. (nautical) To vary or shift suddenly.

   The wind chops about.

4. (obsolete) To twist words.
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Judicature”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     Let not the counsel at the bar chop with the judge.

5. To converse, discuss, or speak with another.

chop (plural chops)

1. A turn of fortune; change; a vicissitude.

• chop and change
• chops and changes

From Middle English choppe (“jaw, jawbone”), related to Middle English cheppe (“one side of the jaw, chap”). Perhaps ultimately related to Etymology 1 above.

• chap

chop (plural chops)

1. (chiefly in the plural) A jaw of an animal.
2. A movable jaw or cheek, as of a vice.
4. The land at each side of the mouth of a river, harbour, or channel.

   East Chop

   West Chop

• “chop”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “chops”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

Borrowed from Hindi छाप (chāp, “stamp”). Closely related to the similarly descended Malay word cap, which likely reinforced the English usage within the Malay world.

chop (plural chops)

2. (colloquial, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei) A stamp or seal; a mark, imprint or impression on a document (or other object or material) made by stamping or sealing a design with ink or wax, respectively, or by other methods. [from 19th c.]
3. (colloquial, by extension, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei) The device used for stamping or sealing, which also contains the design to be imprinted.
4. A mark indicating nature, quality, or brand.

   silk of the first chop

5. A license or passport that has been sealed.
6. A complete shipment.

   a chop of tea

• → Cantonese: chop (cop1)
• → Macanese: chop

chop (third-person singular simple present chops, present participle chopping, simple past and past participle chopped)

1. (transitive, colloquial, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei) To stamp or seal (a document); to mark, impress or otherwise place a design or symbol on paper or other material, usually, but not necessarily, to indicate authenticity. [from 19th c.]
2. To seal a license or passport.

• chop dollar
• grand chop
• not much chop

• Lisa Lim (2016 July 28) “Where does the word 'chop' come from?”, in South China Morning Post‎^[1]

Shortening.

chop (plural chops)

1. (Internet) An IRC channel operator.
   • 1996, Peter Ludlow, High Noon on the Electronic Frontier, page 404:

     IRC supports mechanisms for the enforcement of acceptable behaviour on IRC. Channel operators — "chanops" or "chops" — have access to the /kick command, which throws a specified user out of the given channel.

• chanop
• op

Shortening of chopper.

chop (plural chops)

1. (informal) To fly a helicopter or be flown in a helicopter.

   We chopped back to the base.

• chop chop
• chop suey

• 戳

From English chop.

chop

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) chop (stamp; seal) (Classifier: 個／个 c)

   郵chop／邮chop [Cantonese]  ―  jau⁴ cop¹ [Jyutping]  ―  postal seal

chop

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to stamp; to seal

• (possibly dated) chope

Borrowed from English chop, ultimately from Hindi छाप (chāp, “stamp”). Most likely also influenced by Cantonese chop. Sense 2 derives from the absent professor being recorded with a stamp, i.e. a chop, in a register.

chop

1. official licence
2. (slang) an absent professor or teacher

   Hoje tivemos chope de matemática.

   Today our mathematics professor was absent.

   (literally, “Today we had chop of mathematics.”)

   O Dr. F. deu chope.

   Dr. F. is absent.

   (literally, “Dr. F. gave chop.”)

• The examples for sense 2 are in Portuguese; the Macanese equivalents would roughly be Hoze nôs têm chop di matemática and Dr. F. (já) dâ chop respectively.

• Batalha, Graciete Nogueira (1988) “chope”, in Glossário do dialecto macaense: notas linguísticas, etnográficas e folclóricas [Glossary of the Macanese dialect: linguistic, ethnographic and folkloric notes], Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, page 404
• www.macaneselibrary.org‎^[2], 2024 August 24 (last accessed)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

chop

1. eat
2. spend

• chłop (Southern Silesian)

Inherited from Old Polish chłop.

• IPA^(key): /ˈxɔp/
• Rhymes: -ɔp
• Syllabification: chop

chop m pers

1. man, male
2. husband

   Synonym: mōnż

3. snowman

   Synonym: śniygulŏk

• chop_chlop in dykcjonorz.eu
• chop in silling.org
• Bogdan Kallus (2020) “chop”, in Słownik Gōrnoślōnskij Gŏdki, IV edition, Chorzów: Pro Loquela Silesiana, →ISBN, page 260
• Aleksandra Wencel (2023) “chop”, in Dykcjůnôrz ślų̊sko-polski, page 114
• Barbara Podgórska, Adam Podgóski (2008) “chop”, in Słownik gwar śląskich [A dictionary of Silesian lects], Katowice: Wydawnictwo KOS, →ISBN, page 55