Now dial. [prob. a. ON. *hloppa wk. fem. (Sw. loppa, Da. loppe), f. root of hlǫupa (hlaupa) to LEAP.] A flea.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., viii. 306. Grete loppys ouer all þis land thay fly [sc. the plague of ‘flies’].
1480. Caxton, Chron. Eng., D vij b. After this Boor shall come a lambe that shall haue feet of leed an hede of bras an hert of a loppe.
1597. G. Harvey, Trimming Nashe, Wks. (Grosart), III. 43. But see, what, art thou heere? lupus in fabula, a lop in a chaine?
1662. Rump Songs, I. 192. Lay-interlining Clergy, a device That’s nick-name to the stuff call’d Lops and Lice.
1674. Ray, N. C. Words, 31. Lops and Lice, used in the South, i. e. Fleas and Lice.
1755. in Johnson.
1787. Grose, Provinc. Gloss., Lop, a flea. N.
1863. Robson, Bards of Tyne, 237. The sheets lily-white, though aw says it mysel’; Maw darlin’, nee lops there to touch us.
1877. in N. W. Linc. Gloss.
