Word.ws English Dictionary

chopping

chopping is the present participle and gerund of chop.

Adjective

chopping (comparative more chopping, superlative most chopping)

  1. Shifting or changing suddenly, as the wind; also, having tumbling waves dashing against each other.
    • a chopping sea
  2. (obsolete) stout; large; plump
    • Yet some prolific planet smil'd, / And gave the pair a chopping child[…]a. 1730, Elijah Fenton, The Widow's Wile

Meaning of chop

Verb

chop (third-person singular simple present chops, present participle chopping, simple past and past participle chopped)

  1. (transitive) To cut into pieces with short, vigorous cutting motions.
    • chop wood; chop an onion
  2. (transitive) To sever with an axe or similar implement.
    • Chop off his head.
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To separate or divide.
    • We should chop off some of that department's budget.
  4. (transitive) to give a downward cutting blow or movement, typically with the side of the hand.
  5. (transitive) To hit the ball downward so that it takes a high bounce.
  6. To divide the pot (or tournament prize) between two or more players.

See all 46 meanings of chop

Noun

chopping (plural choppings)

  1. The action by which something is chopped; the act of assailing something with chops.
    • As soon as this danger was appreciated there followed a nervous smashing and chopping of triffids everywhere, until it occurred to someone that all that was necessary to make them harmless was the removal of the actual stinging weapon.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 43

Forms of chopping

Noun
pluralchoppings
Adjective
comparativemore chopping
superlativemost chopping

Words formed from chopping

Phrases with chopping

Words that rhyme with chopping

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about chopping

What does chopping mean?
Chopping means the action by which something is chopped; the act of assailing something with chops.
What is chopping the present participle and gerund of?
Chopping is the present participle and gerund of chop.
What part of speech is chopping?
Chopping can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of chopping?
The plural of chopping is choppings.

Words near chopping in the dictionary

  1. choppier
  2. choppiest
  3. choppily
  4. choppin'
  5. choppiness
  6. chopping
  7. chopping and changing
  8. chopping block
  9. chopping blocks
  10. chopping board
  11. chopping boards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chopping (page history and authors); chop (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “chopping.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chopping. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.