Also 5–7 choppe. [Appears bef. 1400 in the appellation choppe-churche, which implies earlier use of the vb., though the latter has been found first, in the phrase ‘to choppe and change,’ late in the 15th c. The history is not clear, but as CHAP was of occasional earlier use in the same sense, it is not improbable that chop was merely a variant due to the circumstance that other words of the same form varied between chop and chap. There appears little reason to think that the Flemish kōpen, koopen, to sell, or its Eng. form cope, or the ON. kaupa, or its Sc. form coup, had anything to do with the origin of choppe.]
I. To barter, give in exchange.
† 1. intr. or absol. To barter; make an exchange with. Obs.
c. 1485. [see chop and change, 4 a].
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Eschanger, to exchange, to chop, to scorse.
1590. Tarleton, News Purgat. (1844), 56. Will you chop with me? voulez vous troquer avec moi?
1611. Cotgr., Changer … to exchange, interchange, trucke, scoorse, barter, chop with.
1613. Beaum. & Fl., Captain, I. ii. [A trader] in another country … Chopping for rotten raisins.
c. 1630. Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, Wks. (1711), 34. Mars chops with Saturn; Jove claims Mars’s sphere.
2. trans. To exchange one thing for another by way of commerce; to barter. To chop away: to barter away; also fig., to bargain away or let go for unworthy objects or motives. Obs. or dial.
1554. Latimer, Wks. (1845), II. 433. Shall we go about to chop away this good occasion, which God offereth us.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xl. (1887), 229. Schoole places … being in the hart of townes, might easely be chopt for some field situation.
1623. Bp. Hall, Serm., V. 157. Here one chops away the Truth, for fear or ambition.
1693. Shadwell, Volunteers, IV. (1720), IV. 467. Horses that are jades … may be chopt away, or sold in Smithfield.
1706. Lond. Gaz., No. 4236/4. The same Person has … chopp’d and dispos’d of several Horses.
1880–1. E. Cornwall, Oxford, I. of Wight, etc. Gloss., Chop, to barter, to exchange.
Mod. Kent. dial. He chopped away three old hens for two young ones.
† 3. To buy and sell, make commerce of. Obs.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., Wks. (1738), 254. To limit it to that age, when it was in fashion to chop matrimonies.
4. To chop and change: an alliterative phrase in which, as the force of the word chop has become indistinct, the meaning has passed from that of ‘to barter’ to that of ‘to change, alter.’
a. intr. To practise bartering; buy and sell; bargain with.
c. 1485. Digby Myst. (1882), v. 641. I … choppe and chaunge with symonye, and take large yiftes.
1526. Tindale, 2 Cor. ii. 17. Many … which choppe and chaunge with the worde of God.
1578. T. N[ichols], trans. Conq. W. India, 197. A hundred thousand persons come thither to choppe and change.
1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 148. To speake with some of the Indians of Arawca, and to see if they would … chop and change with us.
b. trans. To buy and sell, exchange; also fig.
1549. Allen, Jude’s Par. Rev., 29. She hath chopped and changed it; yea she hath solde it.
1558. Will of C. Alee (Somerset Ho.). Shall neither give, sell, choppe nor chaunge any part.
1584. Leicester’s Commonw. (1641), 60. He doth chop and change what lands he listeth with her Majesty.
1590. H. Barrow, in Confer., i. 6. You buy and sell, chop and change your ecclesiasticall offices … as horses in a faire.
1852. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, xxxix. 212. He was continually chopping and changing his horses.
c. intr. or absol. To change one’s tactics or ways, to make frequent changes; to change about.
1540. Coverdale, Confut. Standish, Wks. II. 419. Even as ye pervert the words of holy scripture … as ye chop and change with it.
1583. Stubbes, Anat. Abus., II. 108. They cannot content themselues with common, and vsuall fashions, but they must chop and chaunge euerie day with the worlde.
1635. Quarles, Embl., I. ix. (1718), 38. O, who would trust this world … That … chops and changes ev’ry minute.
1887. [Catherine Barter], Poor Nellie, II. xi. 245. It is to be hoped he knows his own mind this time, and does not intend chopping and changing about again.
d. trans. To change, make different, alter.
1557. N. T. (Genev.), 1 Pet. i. 2, note. [That] they be not deceaued by them which chope and change it, and gyue poyson in stede of it.
1566. T. Stapleton, Ret. Untr. Jewel, iv. 63. Thus he choppeth and changeth his minde.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., iv. (1669), 254/2. [Laban] chopping and changing his wages so oft.
1724. A. Collins, Gr. Chr. Relig., 222. To chop and change the whole Old Testament as he pleases.
II. Hence the meaning of ‘change’ passes over into chop alone. (As said of the wind, there was prob. some influence of CHOP v.1 in the sense of ‘striking’ in a given direction.)
† 5. trans. To change. Obs.
1644. Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 61. This is not to put down Prelaty, this is but to chop an Episcopacy; this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another.
6. intr. esp. Naut. Of the wind: To change, veer or shift its direction suddenly; usually with round, about (up, obs.).
a. 1642. Sir W. Monson, Naval Tracts, I. (1703), 191/2. The Wind would chop up Westerly.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 19. It was the time of Tornado, when the winds chop about into the South.
1754. Fielding, Amelia, III. iv. The wind, which was at first fair, soon chopped about.
1794. Southey, Bot. Bay Eclog., iii. Then the fair wind of fortune chopt round in my face.
1805. A. Duncan, Mariner’s Chron., III. 174. At the same moment the wind chopped from N. N. W. to west.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., i. (1860), 5. The wind chopped suddenly round, and they all set out to sea.
7. transf. and fig. To turn with, or like, the wind.
1657. Howell, Londinop., 13. The probablest reason why three or four tydes do chop in in one day is, because the winds blowing [etc.].
1711. F. Fuller, Med. Gymn., Pref. When a Cough comes to last above a Month, and begins to chop in its Indications.
1814. D’Israeli, Quarrels Auth. (1867), 395. The weathercock chopping with the wind, so pliant to move, and so stiff when fixed.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, xv. The ship turned slowly to the wind, pitching and chopping as the sails were spilling.
1860. Thackeray, Four Georges, i. (1861), 41. How the House of Lords and House of Commons chopped round.
8. trans. To exchange or bandy words; esp. in To chop logic: to exchange logical arguments and terms, bandy logic, reason argumentatively, argue.
(In late use, often erroneously referred to CHOP v.1, as if ‘to mince,’ divide minutely, ‘split hairs,’ or ‘hash up.’)
c. 1525. Skelton, Replyc., 118. Wolde … That wyse Harpocrates Had your mouthes stopped … Whan ye logyke chopped.
1577. Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., in Holinshed, VI. 49. You charge me … that I presume to chop logike with you … by answering your snappish Quid with a knappish Quo.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Knt. Burn. Pestle, I. (1613), C 3. Harke how hee chops logicke with his mother.
1659. J. Arrowsmith, Chain Prin., 349. Bublings up of carnal reason against divine dispensations … which our English Proverb calls chopping Logick with God.
1661. Ussher, Power Princes, II. (1683), 142. What confusion would be brought … if a Son, or a Servant, or a Subject might have liberty to stand upon terms and chop Logick with his father, Master, or Prince.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 25. A man must not presume to use his reason, unless he has studied the categories, and can chop logic by mode and figure.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, ii. (1858), 232. A bastard kind of Christianity … chopping barren logic merely!
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., ix. Men chopping little familiar logic on one of the profoundest mysteries of Revelation.
† b. rarely with other objects.
1685. trans. Gracian’s Courtiers Man., 140. To chop reasons.
1746. Berkeley, Wks., IV. 304. We will chop politics together.
† c. intr. To bandy words, to answer back.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xxxviii. (1887), 181. With some Logicall helpe to chop, and some Rhetoricke to braue.
1617. Hieron, Wks., 1619–20, II. 321. How soone came he [Jonah] to that extremity of testinesse, that he feared not (as it were) to chop with God.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 252. Echoes are, some more sudden and chop again as soone as the voice is delivered. Ibid., § 248. If it [an Eccho] be neare, and yet not so neare, as to make a Concurrent Eccho, it choppeth with you upon the sudden. Ibid. (1625), Ess. Judicature (Arb.), 457. Let not the Counsell at the Barre, chop with the Iudge … after the Iudge hath Declared his Sentence.
† d. trans. To find fault with; = ARGUE v. 2.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, Pref. 3. I was never afraid to be choped by my master for telling of truth.
