mop

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɒp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mɑp/
• Rhymes: -ɒp

• Audio (US):

  (file)

From Middle English mappe (also as mappel), perhaps borrowed from Walloon mappe (“napkin”), from Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”). Believed to be from a Semitic source, variously claimed as Phoenician or Punic (the latter by Quintilian). Compare Modern Hebrew מַפָּה (mapá, “a map; a cloth”) (shortened from מַנְפָּה (manpah, “fluttering banner, streaming cloth”)). Doublet of map, nape, and nappe.

mop (countable and uncountable, plural mops)

1. An implement for washing floors or similar, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle.
2. A wash with a mop; the act of mopping.

   He gave the floor a quick mop to soak up the spilt juice.

3. (humorous) A dense head of hair.

   He ran a comb through his mop and hurried out the door.

4. (British, dialect, West Midlands) An annual fair where servants were historically hired.
   • 1897, Hamilton Kingsford, Vigornian Monologues: A Series of Papers in Illustration of the Dialect of Worcestershire‎^[1], page 18:

     I means to goo to th' mop, 'er sez, fur I waants a chahinge. […] 'T wuz to w:Muckley mop 'er went.

   • 2014 August 15, Nicholas Fogg, Stratford-upon-Avon: The Biography‎^[2]:

     The Mop Fairs attracted the attention of moralists. The hiring system was seen as a means to acquire girls for prostitution; although there is no evidence that this occurred in Stratford, where girls plying for hire were generally accompanied by their formidable mothers.

   • 2022, Graham Sutherland, Secret Warwick‎^[3]:

     Mop Fairs: Today's annual events are the modern version of the old hiring fairs, where people attended seeking employment or to change it. They are named after the practice of hopefully skilled employees carrying tassels, known as mops, in their buttonholes indicating their occupation. Those who had no trade carried a mop head. At the end of the following week, they could change employers or employees, at what was called the Runaway Mop.

5. (British, obsolete) A tassel worn in a buttonhole to indicate ones occupation in such a fair.
   • 2022, Graham Sutherland, Secret Warwick‎^[4]:

     Mop Fairs: Today's annual events are the modern version of the old hiring fairs, where people attended seeking employment or to change it. They are named after the practice of hopefully skilled employees carrying tassels, known as mops, in their buttonholes indicating their occupation. Those who had no trade carried a mop head. At the end of the following week, they could change employers or employees, at what was called the Runaway Mop.

6. (African-American Vernacular, MLE, slang) A firearm particularly if it has a large magazine (compare broom, but still can be related to MP)

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:firearm

   • 2021 April 7, M24, “Plugged In”, Fumez the Engineer (music)‎^[5], 2:16–2:19:

     Mainstream in this ting but I'm fully on opps
     Got shot with a mop but that boy never dropped

7. (slang, uncountable) Fellatio.
   • 2019, “Laneswitch”, in True 2 Myself, performed by Lil Tjay:

     Had his thot give me mop in the back of my Bimmer

8. (graffiti) A squeezable high-flow paint marker with an extra-wide felt or foam tip.
9. (fishing) A row of ropes dragged along the seabed for catching starfish.
10. (slang) A drunkard.
    • 1931, Folk-say, page 183:

      Left his pa's farm and is now working at the city water works. Some say he's got to drink 'cause he works with blue vitriol and that kind of stuff. He was a drunken mop always.

• → Canadian French: moppe
• → German: Mopp
• → Irish: mapa
• → Spanish: mopa

• (drunkard): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

mop (third-person singular simple present mops, present participle mopping, simple past and past participle mopped)

1. (transitive) To rub, scrub, clean or wipe with a mop, or as if with a mop.

   to mop (or scrub) a floor

   to mop one's face with a handkerchief

2. (US, slang) To shoplift.
   • 2013, Martha Gever, Pratibha Parmar, John Greyson, Queer Looks, page 111:

     By “mopping” (stealing) the clothes and accessories necessary to effect their look, or by buying breasts, reconstructed noses, lifted chins, and female genitals, the children turn traditional ideas of labor around: […]

From Middle English moppe (“fool, simpleton; derisive gesture; child, baby, doll”), of obscure origin, but compare Proto-West Germanic *mauwu (“pout, protruding lip”).

Compare Low German mop, mops (“simpleton; pugnosed dog”), Dutch mop, mops (“pugnosed dog”), and the verb mope.

mop (plural mops)

2. (British, dialect, obsolete) The young of any animal.
3. (British, dialect, obsolete) A young girl; a moppet.
4. A made-up face; a grimace.
   • c. 1621, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Pilgrim”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act IV, scene ii:

     What mops and mowes it makes! --

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Before you can say 'Come' and 'Go,'
     And breathe twice; and cry 'so, so,'
     Each one, tripping on his toe,
     Will be here with mop and mow.

mop (third-person singular simple present mops, present participle mopping, simple past and past participle mopped)

1. (intransitive) To make a wry expression with the mouth.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Flibbertigibbet,[is scared of]moping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women

   • 1904, Stanley J. Weyman, “XII. The Peasants' Camp”, in The Abbess of Vlaye:

     There were women and children as well as men in the place, and all, ragged and half naked, mopped and mowed at the passers, or, leaping to their feet, defied them with unspeakable words and gestures.

• moppet

• (fair where servants are hired): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

• MPO, OPM, PMO, POM, Pom, pom

• IPA^(key): /mɔp/

mop

1. mouth

• IPA^(key): /mɔp/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mop
• Rhymes: -ɔp

The now-obsolete sense brick, attested from the 17th century, appears to be the oldest, with the sense cookie following in the 18th century. The exact relationship between the various later senses is unclear. The ultimate origin is unclear, but possibly corrupted from mok (“mug, cup”).^[1]

mop m (plural moppen, diminutive mopje n)

1. a joke, jest

   Synonyms: grap, grol, fattoe

2. a tune, melody
3. a type of cookie
4. (endearing, often in the diminutive) a woman or girl
5. (obsolete) a brick

• The use as an affectionate term of address is often as a diminutive, and specifically in the non-standard form moppie. The standard diminutive mopje is never used for this sense.

• → Indonesian: mop (only found in the phrase April Mop)

Borrowed from English mop.

mop m (plural mops, diminutive mopje n)

1. a mop (an implement for washing floors, etc.)

   Synonyms: zwabber, dekzwabber

• → Papiamentu: mòp

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

mop

1. inflection of moppen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

• IPA^(key): /mɔp/

mop f (plural mops)

1. alternative form of moppe

Borrowed from Dutch mop (“joke, jest”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmop/, [ˈmɔp̚]
• Rhymes: -mɔp
• Hyphenation: mop

mop (plural mop-mop)

1. joke, jest

   Synonym: lelucon

• “mop” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Borrowed from English mop.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɔp/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔp
• Syllabification: mop
• Homophone: MOP

mop m inan or m animal

1. mop (implement for washing floors or similar, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle)

   Hypernym: szczotka

• mop in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• mop in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from English mop.

mop n (plural mopuri)

1. mop (an implement for washing floors)