Chopping

How to spell chopping

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce chopping

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chopping mean?

1. verbCutting something into pieces with repeated downward strokes of a knife, axe, or blade.

Chopping in a sentence

• Chopping the onions finely made the sauce smoother.

• He spent the cold morning chopping firewood for the stove.

Where does chopping come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'chop', which appears in Middle English as 'choppen', meaning to cut something with a quick downward blow. It is closely related to 'chap', the older word for the splitting or cracking of skin in cold weather, and both seem to share the same Germanic root describing a sudden cutting or breaking action. The sense of cutting into pieces with a knife or axe settled in by the late medieval period, and over time 'chop' also picked up extended meanings such as chopping wood and even the cut of meat known as a 'chop'. The spelling doubles the 'p' when '-ing' is added because the base ends in a single consonant after a short, stressed vowel, which is the standard English rule that turns 'hop' into 'hopping' and 'shop' into 'shopping'. That doubled consonant is the only real trap in the word, since a single 'p' would suggest a long vowel as in 'coping'.

How the word is built

• chop (to cut)
• -p- (doubled consonant after a short stressed vowel)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)