chops

1. 1
   nounplural

   Plural of chop.

   The diner serves two thick chops with mashed potatoes.

   He seasoned the chops and left them to marinate overnight.

   Note

   The butcher's plural is the everyday one, but the singular also names an axe blow, a strike with the side of the hand, small wind-driven waves, and a split pot in poker, and each can be counted. Two uses resist it. Choppy water is often a mass noun, as in a heavy chop. The sack is singular with the: he got the chop. The same spelling also serves the verb form.

2. 2
   nounslangplural

   The mouth, lips, and jaws.

   The cat washed its chops after finishing the bowl of cream.

   One more word and I'll bust you right in the chops.

   Similarmouth, jaws, kisser, gob

   Note

   Old slang with a long run, from an earlier chop meaning "jaw." Smollett's Humphry Clinker (1771) has cherries rolled between a huckster's "filthy chops," and Mezz Mezzrow in 1946 has hard times "ready to smack us in our chops." It is always plural and usually possessive: his chops, in the chops. It suits blunt, physical talk. The jazz meaning grew from it.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialplural

   A person's skill, ability, or competence at some activity or endeavor.

   The new editor clearly has the chops for handling a major story.

   He proved his negotiating chops by closing the deal in a day.

   Similarskills, ability, competence, expertise, know-how

   Note

   The musician's word, set loose on every other skill. The field usually comes first, as a modifier: acting chops, writing chops, foreign-policy chops, penetration-testing chops. The verb is most often have, as in has the chops to be president. The tone is admiring but casual, at home in journalism and tech writing. Like the musical sense it never goes singular.

4. 4
   nounplural

   A musician's skill at interpreting and performing music.

   Touring for a decade gave her the chops to improvise over any chord change.

   The session players were hired for their studio chops.

   Similarskill, technique, ability, talent, virtuosity

   Note

   Jazz slang built on the mouth meaning. A horn player's playing depends on the lips, so the word for the lips came to stand for the playing itself. It soon spread to other instruments. Al Stevens, writing in Dr. Dobb's Journal in 1999, practices to "build up my chops" on the double bass. The usual frames are have the chops to do something and build up or get back one's chops.

5. 5
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of chop.

   The machine chops wood into small, even pieces.

   Every morning the cook chops a pile of vegetables for the soup.

   Note

   The -s form any regular verb takes after he, she or it. Here it collides in spelling and sound with the noun, so position does the work. After a subject it is the verb (she chops); after an article or adjective it is the noun (thick chops). Most senses of chop are transitive, so expect an object: chops wood, chops onions.

6. 6
   nounslangAustraliaNigeriaplural

   Food in general; whatever there is to eat.

   After the long hike, everyone was ready for some chops.

   At the wedding the aunties made sure the chops never ran out: jollof rice, fried plantain, puff-puff and more.

   Similarfood, grub, chow, eats, nosh

   Note

   Slang shared by two far-apart Englishes, Australia's and Nigeria's. It stays plural and works like a mass noun: some chops, the chops ran out, never a chop. Elsewhere chops means cuts of meat, so a line like "the chops are ready" can mislead outside these communities. Let the context make clear that food in general is meant.

7. 7
   nounplural

   The stretch of broken, choppy water where two opposing tides meet.

   The ferry slowed as it crossed the chops at the harbor mouth.

   We hit the chops just as the tide turned and the wind rose.

   Note

   A mariner's term that names a place rather than a surface. The older chop behind it meant "side of a harbor" as well as "jaw." Choppy describes how the water looks. The chops are where you meet that roughness, and the cause is tide running against tide, not wind. Sailors cross, hit or clear the chops, always with the and always plural.

8. 8
   nounplural

   A juggling pattern in which the throwing hand carries one object over the next before releasing it.

   She showed the class how chops differ from a plain cascade.

   Adding chops gave his act a sharper, more dramatic look.

   Note

   A juggler's term, and it is plural for the pattern as a whole: you juggle chops or add chops to a routine. You rarely do "a chop." The name fits the movement. The hand comes over the top and drops, which is the same downward cutting stroke that chop names as a verb. Among other patterns it is named alongside the cascade.

9. 9
   verbdialectalMidlandsWales

   Alternative form of chopse.

   Note

   A Welsh and Midlands verb for berating someone or chattering on, spelled here without its final e. Its other forms keep the s before every ending: chopses, chopsing, chopsed. That makes "she chopsed at him" easy to tell from chopped. Only the bare present matches the form of chop, so a sentence like "he chops all day" needs context to show which verb is meant.

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