Chopper

How to spell chopper

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce chopper

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chopper mean?

1. nounA heavy bladed tool or machine used to cut or slice something into pieces.
2. nounAn informal term for a helicopter.
3. nounA customised motorcycle with extended front forks and high handlebars.

Chopper in a sentence

• The butcher brought the chopper down cleanly through the bone.

• The rescue chopper landed on the hospital roof within minutes.

• He spent two years building a chrome chopper in his garage.

• She fed the herbs into the food chopper for a few seconds.

• Reporters watched the news chopper circle above the motorway crash.

• The rally was full of low riders and gleaming chopper bikes.

Where does chopper come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Chopper is built from the verb 'chop' plus the suffix '-er', which marks an agent or instrument, so it literally names a thing that chops. The verb 'chop' appears in Middle English as 'choppen' around the 1300s, meaning to cut something with a quick downward blow, and it is closely related to 'chap', as in the cracked skin of chapped lips, both carrying the early idea of striking or splitting. The simple noun 'chopper' for a cutting blade or a butcher's tool is recorded by the 1500s. In the twentieth century the word picked up two lively informal senses: 'chopper' for a helicopter, from the chopping sound and motion of the rotor blades, became common with military aviators around the Second World War and the Korean War, and 'chopper' for a customised, stripped down motorcycle arose in American biker culture of the 1960s. The double 'p' simply preserves the short vowel of 'chop' when the suffix is added, which is the only mild spelling point to watch.

How the word is built

• chop (to cut with a blow)
• -er (agent or instrument suffix: a thing that chops)