slop

1 of 3

noun (1)

ˈsläp 

1

: a loose smock or overall

2

slops plural : short full breeches worn by men in the 16th century

3

slops plural : articles (such as clothing) sold to sailors

slop

2 of 3

noun (2)

1

: soft mud : slush

2

: thin tasteless drink or liquid food

—usually used in plural

3

: liquid spilled or splashed

4

a

: food waste (such as garbage) fed to animals : swill sense 2a

b

: excreted body waste

—usually used in plural

c

: a product of little or no value : rubbish

watching the usual slop on TV

5

: sentimental effusiveness in speech or writing : gush

slop

3 of 3

verb

slopped; slopping

transitive verb

1

a

: to spill from a container

b

: to splash or spill liquid on

c

: to cause (a liquid) to splash

2

: to dish out messily

3

: to eat or drink greedily or noisily

4

: to feed slop to

slop the hogs

intransitive verb

1

: to tramp in mud or slush

2

: to become spilled or splashed

3

: to be effusive : gush

4

: to pass beyond or exceed a boundary or limit

Synonyms

Noun (2)

• guck
• gook
• mire
• muck
• mud
• ooze
• slime
• sludge
• slush

Verb

• dash
• slosh
• spatter
• splash
• swash

Examples of slop in a Sentence

Noun (2)

slipped and fell in the slop behind the shed

cleaned the slops out of the cow barn

that songwriter turns out nothing but slop, and record buyers eat it up

some slop that the cafeteria staff claims is edible

Verb

She slopped coffee on her sweater.

Huge waves slopped water into the boat.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Facebook slop, Meyl writes in an email, is more a problem of intent than aesthetics. —Maura Judkis, Washington Post, 30 June 2024

These sheds were urban dairies attached to distilleries, where two thousand or more unhealthy cows were housed in unsanitary conditions and fed grain slop from alcohol fermentation. —Catherine Long, JSTOR Daily, 17 Jan. 2024

From a field somewhere comes the faint cry of new wild kittens and water slops over the edge of the swimming pool, sending white butterflies into the air. —Antonia Quirke, Condé Nast Traveler, 8 May 2024

The fatality took place as the pair rode along the lower portion of an open east-facing slop in Haskins Creek, west of Battle Pass in the Sierra Madre range. —USA TODAY, 13 Feb. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle English slop, sloppe "loose outer garment," going back to Old English -slop, in oferslop "loose outer garment, surplice," going back to Germanic *slupa- (whence also Middle Dutch slop "upper garment [as a priest's surplice]," overslop "upper garment, foreskin," Middle High German slopf, slupf "loop, noose," Old Icelandic sloppr "loose garment, vestment"), probably going back to an ablauting n-stem paradigm *slaubōn- (nominative), *sluppas (genitive), going back to Indo-European *slou̯b^h-ōn-, *slub^h-n-ós, derivative of the verbal base *sleu̯b^h- "move easily, slip" — more at sleeve

Noun (2)

of uncertain origin

Note: This word has traditionally been traced back to Middle English sloppes, attested once, in the alliterative Morte Arthure (ca. 1440), and then further traced to Old English -sloppe in cusloppe, a variant of cūslyppe cowslip, in which -sloppe is taken to mean "dung, excrement." The passage in the Morte Arthure in which sloppes occurs describes Arthur and his knights disembarking from boats and wading ashore: "Londis als a lyon with lordliche knyghtes, / Slippes in the sloppes o slante to þe girdyll" (lines 3922-23). The Middle English Dictionary tentatively defines the word as "muddy waters." Note that it forms an alliterative pair with slippes, from which it differs only by a vowel. No further attestations of slop appear before the seventeenth century, and then again often paired with slip. The sense "medicine in the form of a tasteless drink or liquid food" occurs in 1658 as slops, in 1668 as slip-slops. Though slip-slop has been taken as a compound based on slop, the possibility that the compound is actually based on slip suggests itself—in which case slop would be an affective coinage that may have been made more than once and is not datable to Old English. Compare slop entry 3.

Verb

probably derivative of slop entry 2

Note: The sense "to lap up," attested since the sixteenth century, may be of independent origin. The Oxford English Dictionary's citation from Thomas Tusser's A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, printed in 1557 ("Their milke slapt in corners, their creame al to sost"), placed under the sense "to spill or splash (liquid)," is 250 years earlier than the next citation and probably an instance of a different word (slab?).

First Known Use

Noun (1)

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun (2)

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

1557, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1a

Phrases Containing slop

• slop around/about
• slop basin
• slop bowl
• slop chest
• slop jar
• slop pail

Kids Definition

slop

1 of 2 noun

ˈsläp 

1

: soft mud : slush

2

: thin tasteless drink or liquid food

—usually used in plural

3

: liquid spilled or splashed

4

a

: food waste (as garbage) fed to animals : swill

b

: waste given off by the body

—usually used in plural

slop

2 of 2 verb

slopped; slopping

1

: to spill on or over

2

: to feed slop to

slop the pigs