Other forms: hoppers
A hopper is a funnel-shaped container that feeds material out below. Fill the hopper, a grain hopper, the hopper jammed.
The shape does the work: gravity feeds the material down and out, so nothing has to push it. The name comes from the hopping motion of the shaking device on an old mill, which kept the grain moving. A grasshopper carries the same -hopper.
1nounhopperA funnel-shaped container that feeds material out below.
“The farmer poured the grain into the hopper, and it trickled down into the machine.”
hopper is a container.
HOPper → in at the TOP, out at the bottom
Corn goes in at the top and comes out at the bottom a little at a time, straight into the machine below it.
hooks ontotop
Middle English hoppere is hop plus -er, from the shaking motion of the container on a mill.
Old English
*hoppa
Middle English
hoppere
English, today
hopper
Built from
From Middle English hoppere, from hoppe, from Old English hoppa. From Middle English hoppere, alteration of hoppe (found in grashoppe (“grasshopper”)), from Old English hoppa (“one who hops, hopper”), equivalent to hop + -er. Cognate with Dutch hopper (“hopper”), Swedish hoppare (“hopper, jumper”), Icelandic hoppari* (“hopper”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA