Drop

How to spell drop

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce drop

What does drop mean?

1. verbTo let something fall, or to fall or decrease suddenly.
2. nounA small rounded amount of liquid, or a fall or decrease in level.

Drop in a sentence

• verb

  Please do not drop the box of glasses on the tiled floor.

• noun

  A single drop of oil left a stain on the white carpet.

• verb

  Share prices tend to drop when a company misses its targets.

• noun

  The report noted a steep drop in monthly sales.

Where does drop come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English, where the noun dropa meant a small globule of liquid, and the related verb dropian or droppian meant to fall in drops. These belong to the broader Germanic family, with close cousins such as Dutch drop and German Tropfen, all tracing back to a Proto-Germanic root for something that falls or trickles. The earliest sense was firmly tied to liquid, the bead of water or blood that detaches and falls, and only later did the verb broaden to mean letting anything fall, then later still to figurative falls such as a drop in prices or temperature. Because the word is so old and native, its spelling is wonderfully plain: a single short vowel between two consonants, with the doubling of the final consonant appearing only in inflected forms like dropped and dropping. That short, blunt shape is exactly why drop sounds and feels like the quick action it describes.

How the word is built

• drop (from Old English dropa, a drop of liquid); no affixes