Hop

How to spell hop

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hop

What does hop mean?

1. verbTo make a quick, light jump, especially on one foot or as a small animal does.
2. nounA short jump, or by extension a brief journey, especially a quick flight.
3. nounA climbing plant whose dried cones are used to give beer its bitter flavour.

Hop in a sentence

• verb

  The children like to hop across the stepping stones in the stream.

• noun

  The flight to the next island is just a short hop.

• noun

  The brewery grows one variety of hop for its bitter ale.

• verb

  She had to hop on one leg after twisting her ankle.

• noun

  With one quick hop the frog cleared the puddle.

• noun

  Each hop adds a distinct aroma to the finished beer.

Where does hop come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb hoppian, which meant to spring, leap, or dance, and it has cousins across the Germanic languages, including the Middle Dutch and Middle Low German hoppen. The earliest sense was a light springing movement on the feet, the same kind of motion a sparrow makes, and from that came the noun for a short leap. By the eighteenth century 'hop' had also picked up the informal meaning of a dance or social gathering, since dancing was once a series of bouncing steps. A separate but unrelated 'hop', the climbing plant whose cones flavour and preserve beer, came into English in the fifteenth century from the Dutch hoppe, and the two words are pure coincidence rather than relatives. The short, doubled-consonant spelling is regular for a clipped Old English verb, so the only mild trap is remembering to double the p when it inflects.

How the word is built

• hop (single root, from Old English hoppian: to spring or dance)