drop

UK/dɹɒp/US/dɹɑp/

verbA26 meanings One of the most common words in English · #330 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: dropped, dropping, drops

To drop something is to let it fall. The glass slips out of a wet hand, the keys go through the gap in the decking, the dog drops the ball at your feet and waits.

It runs in both directions: you drop a plate, and the temperature drops with nobody touching it. Prices drop, voices drop, shoulders drop. Drop a subject, drop a class, drop a friend, and you have stopped with it. Phrasal verbs cover half the language here — drop in on someone, drop off a parcel, drop off to sleep, drop out of school. The noun is either a bead of liquid, a drop of rain, drops of blood, or a fall: a drop of ten metres, a sharp drop in sales.

Definitions of drop

1verbdropTo let something fall, by accident or on purpose.A2~21%
“He dropped his phone in the car park and cracked the screen.”
synonyms: let go of
2verbsinkTo fall, or to become lower in level, amount or strength.A2~2%
“The temperature dropped ten degrees after sunset.”
synonyms: fall, sink, decline
3verbstopTo stop doing or discussing something.B1~2%
“Can we drop the subject and eat?”
4verbtakeTo take someone or something to a place and leave them there.B1~2%
“I will drop you at the station on my way in.”
5nounsmallA very small round amount of liquid.A2~10%
“A drop of rain landed on the back of my hand.”
6nounhigherA fall from a higher place to a lower one, or a decrease in amount.B1~63%
“There is a sheer drop on the far side of the wall.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense (9 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

a drop in the ocean — an amount far too small to make any difference
at the drop of a hat — immediately, without needing to be persuaded
drop someone a line — to send someone a short message

Where it comes from

Drop begins as a bead of liquid. Old English dropa meant a drop of water, from Proto-Germanic drupô, from a verb dreupaną meaning to drip or droop, and behind that a Proto-Indo-European root for dripping. The falling verb grew straight out of the falling water: first the raindrop, then anything that lets go and comes down.

Proto-Indo-European
*dʰrewb-
Middle English
droppen
English, today
drop

Built from

*dreupaną · Proto-Germanic — to drip, droop

From Middle English droppen. From Late Middle English droppe, Middle English drope (“small quantity of liquid; small or least amount of something; pendant jewel; dripping of a liquid; a shower; nasal flow, catarrh; speck, spot; blemish; disease causing spots on the skin”)dropan, droupe, (Northern England) droipe, from Old English dropa (“a drop”), from Proto-West Germanic dropō (“drop (of liquid)”), from Proto-Germanic drupô (“drop (of liquid)”), from dreupaną (“to drip, droop”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰrebʰ- (“to drip, drop”). 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Everyday Verbs

Practise this word

drop in the wild

As a feature, drag-and-drop support is not found in all software, though it is sometimes a fast and easy-to-learn technique.
Drag and drop
Although the signal and location by necessity must be agreed upon in advance, the signal may or may not be located close to the dead drop itself.
Dead drop
Dead drops are sometimes used for the sale of narcotics.
Dead drop
In aviation, a drop tank (external tank, wing tank or belly tank) is used to describe auxiliary fuel tanks externally carried by aircraft.
Drop tank
The operators carried out the test following an accidental drop in reactor power.
Chernobyl disaster

1 / 4

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

Definitions of drop

1verbdropTo let something fall, by accident or on purpose.A2~21%

“He dropped his phone in the car park and cracked the screen.”

synonyms: let go of

2verbsinkTo fall, or to become lower in level, amount or strength.A2~2%

“The temperature dropped ten degrees after sunset.”

synonyms: fall, sink, decline

3verbstopTo stop doing or discussing something.B1~2%

“Can we drop the subject and eat?”

4verbtakeTo take someone or something to a place and leave them there.B1~2%

“I will drop you at the station on my way in.”

5nounsmallA very small round amount of liquid.A2~10%

“A drop of rain landed on the back of my hand.”

6nounhigherA fall from a higher place to a lower one, or a decrease in amount.B1~63%

“There is a sheer drop on the far side of the wall.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense (9 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.