/tʃɒp/
[verb] To cut something into pieces with a sharp tool, like a knife or axe, using quick, strong movements. It can also mean to reduce or remove something suddenly, such as a budget or a plan.
The word 'chop' likely shares its ancient roots with 'cheap' — both once had to do with trading blows and bargaining.
The word 'chop' first appears in English writing around the late 14th century, and its origins are surprisingly tangled. It most likely comes from the Middle English word 'chappen' or 'choppen', meaning to cut or strike. This in turn appears to be related to Middle Low German 'happen' and Middle Dutch 'cappen', both meaning to cut or lop off. These Germanic cousins all point toward a common idea: a swift, decisive severing action, the kind a woodcutter or butcher would know well.
What makes the history of 'chop' especially interesting is how it seems to have grown in English partly by rubbing shoulders with another word: 'chap'. In older English, 'chap' meant to strike a bargain or to exchange — it is the same root that gives us 'cheap' (originally meaning a deal or trade) and the place name 'Cheapside' in London, once a famous market street. While 'chop' the cutting word and 'chap' the trading word are probably cousins rather than twins, there is strong evidence they influenced each other over time. In phrases like 'chop and change', which means to keep switching or trading one thing for another, the trading sense bleeds directly into the cutting one.
By the 16th and 17th centuries, 'chop' had taken on a rich variety of meanings in English, many of them nautical. Sailors spoke of 'chopping seas' — waves that came from different directions at the same time, creating a rough, broken surface. This gave rise to the adjective 'choppy', which we still use today to describe rough water or unstable conditions. The sea, in this image, was being cut and re-cut from every angle, each wave a little blow against the last.
The word also travelled east and came back transformed. When English traders and colonists arrived in China and South Asia, they encountered a Chinese word — 'chop' or 'chaap' in Cantonese — meaning a stamp, seal, or official mark of approval. This gave English the phrase 'first chop', meaning first quality or top grade, and eventually the slang expression 'chops', used to describe someone's skills or credentials, especially in music. A jazz musician with great 'chops' has the technical mastery to prove it — a kind of invisible seal of approval stamped onto their playing.
In modern English, 'chop' has settled comfortably into both the kitchen and the figurative world of power and decision-making. We chop vegetables, we chop down trees, and we chop budgets. The image is always the same: something whole being made smaller by force. Interestingly, the plural noun 'chops' has also come to mean the jaws or mouth of a person or animal — derived from an older variant spelling 'chaps', referring to the cheeks and jaw — so that when a dog licks its chops, it is performing a very old word indeed, one that has been sharpened and re-sharpened over centuries of use.