Other forms: slops, slopping, slopped
To slop is to spill liquid over the edge while moving it. Slop the tea, slopped everywhere, slopping over.
It is a small careless spill rather than a disaster. As a noun, slops are unappetising liquid food or waste liquid: pig slops, slop bucket. Slop out was the prison practice of emptying a chamber pot each morning, ended in most British prisons by about 1996 and a serious subject. Note sloppy, meaning careless; and slop about, which is British for lounging around doing nothing.
1verbslopTo spill liquid over the edge in moving it.
“He slopped about a third of it over four stairs.”
2noununappetisingUnappetising liquid food or waste liquid.
“The prisoners complained that their dinner was cold, tasteless slop.”
slop is a spilling, or waste liquid.
Old English slop is related to slip and slime, from a Germanic root about wetness and sliding. The whole family describes things that will not stay where they are put.
Proto-Indo-European
*slewbʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*slup-
Old English
*slop
Middle English
slop
English, today
slop
Built from
From Middle English slop, from Old English slop, from Proto-Germanic slup-, from Proto-Indo-European slewbʰ-. From Middle English slop, sloppe, slope, from Old English slop (found in oferslop (“an outergarment, surplice”)). Cognate with Icelandic sloppur (“a long, loose gown”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA