Word.ws English Dictionary

hop

UK/hɒp//hɑp/

hop noun: a short jump.

hop: a short jump
Image: Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

hop (plural hops)

  1. A short jump.
    • The frog crossed the brook in three or four hops.
  2. A jump on one leg.
  3. A short journey, especially in the case of air travel, one that takes place on a private plane.
    • My fellow passengers are a mixture of people returning from a day out in the capital, locals doing short hops, and a few (like me) heading farther afield.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68
  4. (figuratively, informal) A brief period of development or progress.
    • For popular radio stars in New York and Los Angeles, it was a short hop to network television.
  5. (US) A bounce, especially from the ground, of a thrown or batted ball.
  6. (UK, US, dated, slang) A dance; a gathering for the purpose of dancing.
    • One singing-room we had closed, and so damaged a "twopenny hop" that it could not have survived another season had our own prosperity continued unchecked.1896, Benjamin Brierley, James Dronsfield, "Ab-o'th'-Yate" Sketches and Other Short Stories
  7. The sending of a data packet from one host to an adjacent host as part of its overall journey.

Verb (1)

hop (third-person singular simple present hops, present participle hopping, simple past and past participle hopped)

  1. (intransitive) To jump a short distance.
    • When it had advanced from the wood, it hopped much after the fashion of a kangaroo, using its hind feet and tail to propel it, and when it stood erect, it sat upon its tail.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter V, in Hugo Gernsback, editor...
    Synonyms:
    jump, leap
  2. (intransitive) To jump on one foot.
  3. (intransitive) To be in state of energetic activity.
    • Sorry, can't chat. Got to hop.
    • The sudden rush of customers had everyone in the shop hopping.
  4. (transitive) To suddenly take a mode of transportation that one does not drive oneself, often surreptitiously.
    • I hopped a plane over here as soon as I heard the news.
    • He was trying to hop a ride in an empty trailer headed north.
  5. (transitive) To jump onto, or over
    • They hop the curb and cut their engines.2018 February, Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just...
    • As the 1857 to Manchester Piccadilly rolls in, I scan the windows and realise there are plenty of spare seats, so I hop aboard. The train is a '221'+'220' combo to allow for social distancing - a luxury on an XC train as normally you're playing sardines, so I make the most of it.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68
  6. (in-compounds, intransitive, usually) To move frequently from one place or situation to another similar one.
    • We were party-hopping all weekend.
    • bar-hopping
  7. (informal, intransitive) To go in a quick or sudden manner.
    • We hopped on the freeway heading to LA and I looked over at the dashboard and saw the needle back on “E” and I told the guy, “Hey! You going to make it with the gas you got?"2010, Tony Gin, My Blessed Demons, page 285
    • Juliet shook her head as she hopped on the computer and greeted a customer who ambled in, blowing on her still wet nails.2016, A.P. Jensen, Closure
  8. (informal) To dance.
  9. (obsolete) To walk lame; to limp.
    • The limping smith […]hopping here and there, himself a jest[…]a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “(please specify the title)”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume IV, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC

Noun (2)

hop (plural hops)

  1. A plant of species Humulus lupulus, native to northern Europe, female flowers of which are used to flavour many types of beer during brewing.
  2. (plural-normally) The flowers of the hop plant, dried and used to brew beer.
  3. (US, slang) Opium, or some other narcotic drug.
    • ‘You've been shot full of hop and kept under it until you're as crazy as two waltzing mice.’1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 177
    Synonyms:
    aunti/aunti Emma, big O, chandu, Chinese tobacco, dopium, dream gun, dream stick, fi-do-nie, gee, God's medicine
  4. The fruit of the dog rose; a hip.

Verb (2)

hop (third-person singular simple present hops, present participle hopping, simple past and past participle hopped)

  1. (transitive) To impregnate with hops, especially to add hops as a flavouring agent during the production of beer
    • If you brew in March or October, and have hopped it for long keeping[…]1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC
  2. (intransitive) To gather hops.

Noun (3)

hop (plural hops)

  1. (Internet) Synonym of half-op.
    Synonyms:
    half-op

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Hop

Hop (plural Hops)

  1. A surname from Dutch.

Noun (4) capitalized: Hop

Hop (plural Hops)

  1. (Australia, abbreviation, ellipsis, slang) Ellipsis of John Hop (“a police officer”).
    • "Police!" snarled Jack. "Bloody Johnny Hops! They couldn't hold a sucking pig in their hands, unless somebody hung on to its tail for them. It's our boys who've got things in hand. And handed them over to the Hops."1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Kangaroo, London: Martin Secker, page 356

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Hop

Hop

  1. Synonym of Mari (etymology 3)
    Synonyms:
    Mari

hop meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

hop in Hindi

हॉप, हॉप करें

hop in Tamil

ஹாப்

hop in Marathi

हॉप

hop in Urdu

ہاپ
More languagesFewer languages
hop in Bengali
হপ, হপ করুন
hop in Telugu
హాప్, హాప్ చేయడానికి
hop in Kannada
ಹಾಪ್, ಹಾಪ್ ಮಾಡಲು
hop in Punjabi
ਹੌਪ
hop in Gujarati
હોપ, હૉપ
hop in Odia
ହପ୍ କରନ୍ତୁ, ହପ୍, ହାପ୍
hop in Nepali
हप, हप गर्न, हप गर्नका लागि
hop in Arabic
نَقْز naqz, نَقَزَ naqaza
hop in Persian
رازک râzak, خمل xemel
hop in Thai
ดอกฮ็อพ dòk hóp
hop in Vietnamese
hoa bia

Examples of hop in a sentence

  • He hopped a train to California.
  • We had to island-hop on the weekly seaplane to get to his hideaway.
  • Spangler hopped up from the control panel and stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back.2018, Sean Grigsby, Daughters of Forgotten Light:
  • She hopped on the computer and typed away, going back and forth between Mark's fake I.D., the deposit slip and the computer screen.2020, Michael Hewes, The Milk Wagon:

All 40 example sentences with hop

Synonyms of hop

  • jump
  • leap
  • aunti/aunti Emma
  • big O
  • chandu
  • Chinese tobacco
  • dopium
  • dream gun
  • dream stick
  • fi-do-nie
21 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of hop

Forms of hop

Noun
pluralhops
pluralHops
Verb
third-person singular presenthops
present participlehopping
past participlehopped
pasthopped
Proper noun
pluralHops

Past tense of hop: hopped

Plural of hop: hops

Origin of hop

From Middle English hoppen, from Old English hoppian (“to hop, spring, leap, dance”), from Proto-West Germanic *huppōn, from Proto-Germanic *huppōną (“to hop”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewb- (“to bend, bow”). Cognate with Dutch hoppen (“to hop”), German hopfen, hoppen (“to hop”), Danish hoppe (“to hop, leap, jump”), Swedish hoppa (“to hop, leap, jump”), Icelandic hoppa (“to hop, skip”).

From Middle English hoppe, from Middle Dutch hoppe, from Old Dutch *hoppo, from Proto-Germanic *huppô, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keup (“tuft, hair of the head”), referring to the plant's appearance. Cognate with German Hopfen and French houblon.

Borrowed from Dutch Hop.

Words formed from hop

Phrases with hop

33 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with hop

44 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hop

What does hop mean?
Hop means a short jump.
What is hop in Hindi?
Hop in Hindi is हॉप, हॉप करें. See Hop meaning in Hindi.
How do you use hop in a sentence?
He hopped a train to California.
What part of speech is hop?
Hop can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hop?
Hop is pronounced /hɒp/ (UK).
What is the plural of hop?
The plural of hop is hops.

Words near hop in the dictionary

  1. Hoovervilles
  2. hooves
  3. hooving
  4. hoowee
  5. hooyah
  6. hop
  7. hop a freight
  8. hop about
  9. hop and bop
  10. hop and pop
  11. hop clover

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hop (page history and authors); Hop (page history and authors); hop (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hop (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-hop.ogg, En-au-hop.ogg.

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