Hopper

How to spell hopper

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hopper

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hopper mean?

1. nounA funnel-shaped container that stores loose material and releases it through an opening at the bottom.

Hopper in a sentence

• The factory loaded grain into the steel hopper above the conveyor belt.

• Sand poured steadily from the hopper onto the moulding line.

Where does hopper come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the verb 'hop', which descends from the Old English hoppian, meaning 'to spring or leap on one foot', a thoroughly native Germanic word with cousins across the old northern languages. Adding the agent suffix '-er' produces 'hopper', literally 'one who hops' or 'a thing connected with hopping', and the earliest uses did mean a leaping creature such as a grasshopper. From the late medieval period the sense widened in a clever way: a funnel-shaped grain container in a mill was called a hopper because it shook or 'hopped' as the grain trickled and jostled through it. That mechanical sense gave us the modern storage and dispensing hopper, and later the railway hopper wagon that drops its load from below. The doubled 'p' is the only mild spelling point, and it follows the regular English rule of doubling a final consonant after a short stressed vowel before '-er'.

How the word is built

• hop (from Old English hoppian: to leap)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix: a thing that does)