Chops

How to spell chops

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chops

What does chops mean?

1. nounSmall cuts of meat, typically attached to a rib or bone, such as lamb or pork.
2. verbCuts something into pieces with quick, heavy strokes.
3. nounImpressive technical skill or ability, especially in music or a craft.
4. nounThe jaws or mouth, especially when associated with eating.

Chops in a sentence

• noun

  The butcher trimmed two thick pork chops for dinner.

• verb

  He chops firewood every morning before work.

• noun

  The guitarist has serious chops after years of practice.

• noun

  The dog licked its chops as the steak came off the grill.

• noun

  She seasoned the lamb chops before grilling them.

• verb

  The chef chops the onions finely for the sauce.

Where does chops come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word chop arose in Middle English as choppen, meaning 'to cut with a quick blow', and it is closely related to chap, an old verb for striking or splitting (as in chapped, cracked skin). The exact origin is a little tangled: it seems to be partly imitative of the sound of a blow and partly borrowed from the same Germanic stock that gave Dutch kappen, 'to cut or chop'. From the cutting sense came the noun chop, a small cut of meat sliced off, and the plural chops for such pieces on the plate. A separate strand gave chops the meaning of the jaws or mouth, probably from the idea of the parts that chomp, and from there the modern slang sense of 'skill' (as in a musician's chops) developed in twentieth-century American usage. Because the word simply adds a plain -s, the spelling trap is mild, resting only on the soft-sounding initial 'ch'.

How the word is built

• chop (from Middle English choppen: to cut)
• -s (plural / third-person verb ending)