[f. CHOP v.2]
1. Exchanging one thing for another; now almost exclusively in the phrase chopping and changing.
a. 1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 340 b. I know not what crooked & crabbed conveyaunce, and choppyng of matters together.
1625. Bacon, Ess. Riches (Arb.), 237. As for the Chopping of Bargaines, when a Man Buies, not to Hold, but to Sell over againe.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev. (1708), 122. His Case is no more than Chopping of a Cold Wife for a Warm one.
b. 1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke, vi. 77. It is a choppyng and chaungyng of benefites one for another.
1563. Homilies, II. Fasting, I. (1859), 285. Men … crafty and subtil in chopping and changing, using false weights.
1589. Pasquill’s Ret., B. This chopping & changing of the Religion of the land.
1666. Pepys, Diary (1879), III. 493. All the morning at my Tangier accounts, which the chopping and changing of my tallys make mighty troublesome.
1810. Southey, Lett., in Life, III. xvi. 275. I have no hope from chopping and changing while the materials must remain the same.
c. with plural.
1585. Abp. Sandys, Serm. (1841), 168. While we are thus occupied about these choppings and changings.
1880. Green, Hist. Eng. People, IV. VIII. iv. 107. Diplomacy spent its ingenuity in countless choppings and changings of the smaller territories about the Mediterranean and elsewhere.
2. Chopping of logic: bandying of arguments.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev. (1708), 4. No more chopping of Logick, good Mr. Conjurer, says the Devil.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 287. To listen to a few Protestant logic-choppings.
3. Comb. † chopping-taker, a taker of bribes.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, I. (1692), 39. There was a Chopping-taker in his Family, that was least suspected; but his Lordship’s Hands were clean.
