Other forms: hops, hopping, hopped
To hop is to jump a short distance, springing off one leg and landing on it again. A child hopping down a hopscotch grid, a sparrow hopping across the patio, you hopping to the sofa after standing on a plug.
Hop is quick and friendly, and English uses it for anything done briefly and without fuss: hop in, hop on a train, hop over to the shop for milk. A short flight is a hop — Dublin to Manchester is a forty-minute hop. The spelling doubles the p: hopped, hopping. Hoping, with one p, is about wishes and has nothing to do with legs, and mixing the two is the commonest mistake made with this word. Hops, the green cones that make beer bitter, is a separate word wearing the same spelling.
1verbhopTo jump a short distance, especially on one leg.
“He hopped across the hot sand towards the water.”
2verbquicklyTo get in, on or out of something quickly and easily (informal).
“Hop in and I'll drive you to the station.”
3nounjumpA short jump.
“The bird crossed the lawn in a series of little hops.”
4nounjourneyA short journey, especially a short flight.
“It is only a short hop from Dublin to Manchester.”
5noungreenThe green cones used to give beer its bitter taste, written in the plural as hops.
“The beer smelled strongly of fresh hops.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
hop is a way of moving.
Hop is Old English hoppian, which meant to hop, to spring, to leap — and to dance. Behind it sits a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to bend or bow, which is what a knee does just before it launches you. The dancing sense never quite left English, and Danish and Swedish still say hoppa for jump.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱewb-
Proto-Indo-European
*kewb- — to bend, bow
Proto-Germanic
*huppōną — to hop
Proto-West Germanic
*huppōn
Old English
hoppian — to hop, spring, leap, dance
Middle English
hoppen
English, today
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA