subs. (old).—1. A blow. Once (in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) literary; and still respectable in a ‘chopping’—i.e., a beating ‘sea.’
2. An exchange; a barter. Cf., CHOP AND CHANGE.
1876. C. HINDLEY, ed. The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 140. I purchased, or more properly speaking had a ‘CHOP’ with a wooden bowlmaker from Chesham.
Verb (colloquial).—1. To exchange; to barter: as, TO CHOP LOGIC = to give argument for argument; and TO CHOP STORIES = to ‘cap’ one anecdote with another. Also to change quarters: as ‘the wind CHOPPED round to the north.’ Cf., SWAP.
1554. LATIMER, wks. (1845), II., 433. Shall we go about to CHOP away this good occasion, which God offereth us. [M.]
1693. SHADWELL, Volunteers, IV. (1720), iv., 467. Horses that are jades … may be CHOPT away or sold in Smithfield. [M.]
1871. City Press, Jan. 21. ‘Curiosities of Street Literature.’
| He hangs out in Monmouth-court, | |
| And wears a pair of blue-black breeches, | |
| Where all the ‘Polly Cox’s crew’ do resort, | |
| To chop their swag for badly-printed dying speeches. |
2. To eat a chop.
1841. CATHERINE GORE, Cecil, xx. I would rather have CHOPPED at the ‘Blue Posts’ as I once did, fifteen years before. [M.]
1887. G. A. SALA, Illustrated London News, Feb. 5, 144. I went one day … to CHOP at the ‘Cock.’ [M.]
3. (colonial).—See quot.
1871. Sheffield Telegraph, April. West African (New Calabar) slang for cannibalistic practice. He’s CHOPPED, i.e., he is eaten.
CHOP AND CHANGE, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Ups and downs; vicissitudes; changes of fortune.
1759–67. STERNE, Tristram Shandy [ed. 1772], I., ch. xi. [Surnames] which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as many CHOPS AND CHANGES as their owners.
1834. MARRYAT, Jacob Faithful, xvi. At last we were all arranged … although there were several CHOPS AND CHANGES about until the order of precedence could be correctly observed.
1845. HOOD, To Kitchener, iii. Like Fortune, full of CHOPS AND CHANGES.
1849–50. THACKERAY, Pendennis, III., p. 423. I have heard of all that has happened, and all the CHOPS AND CHANGES that have taken place during my absence.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, II., 338. The accounts of such transactions for a series of years, with all their CHOPS AND CHANGES.
Verbal phr., trs. and intrs.—To barter; buy and sell; exchange; change tactics; veer frequently from one side to the other; vacillate, etc.
1485. Digby Mysteries (1882), v., 641.
| I … CHOPPE AND CHAUNGE with symonye, | |
| and take large yiftes. [M.]. |
1593. G. HARVEY, Pierce’s Supererogation, in wks. II., 115. To mangle my sentences, hack my arguments, CHOPP AND CHANGE my phrases.
1672. WYCHERLEY, Love in a Wood, wks. v. (1713), 431. We have CHOP’D AND CHANG’D, and hid our Christina’s so long, and often, that at last, we have drawn each of us our own?
1706. E. COLES, English Dictionary. CHOP Church, CHANGING of one Church for another.
1883. PRINCIPAL SHAIRP, Dr. Pusey and the Oxford Movement, in Good Words, xxiv. Jan., p. 27/1. The politicians seemed bent on making the Church a tool which they might CHOP AND CHANGE as the political wind blew.
FIRST CHOP, SECOND CHOP, etc. (q.v.).
