Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To dip, soak, or drench in a liquid; saturate.
  • transitive verb To take up by absorption.
  • noun A piece of food soaked or dipped in a liquid.
  • noun Something yielded to placate or soothe.
  • noun A bribe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To dip or soak in a liquid.
  • To take up by absorption: followed by up: as, to sop up water with a sponge.
  • To soak in; penetrate, as a liquid; percolate.
  • To be drenched; be soaked with wet: as, his clothes were sopping with rain.
  • noun Something soaked; a morsel, as of bread, dipped in a liquid before being eaten; a piece of bread softened, as in broth or milk, or intended to be so softened.
  • noun Hence A morsel of food; a small portion of food or drink; a mouthful; a bite.
  • noun Something given to pacify or quiet; a bribe: so used in allusion to the sop given to Cerberus in order to secure a quiet entrance to the lower world.
  • noun A small piece; a fragment: a particle; hence, a trifle; a thing of little or no value.
  • noun An abbreviation of soprano.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To steep or dip in any liquid.
  • noun Anything steeped, or dipped and softened, in any liquid; especially, something dipped in broth or liquid food, and intended to be eaten.
  • noun Anything given to pacify; -- so called from the sop given to Cerberus, as related in mythology.
  • noun obsolete A thing of little or no value.
  • noun (Bot.) an old name of the clove pink, alluding to its having been used to flavor wine.
  • noun (Bot.) an old European variety of apple, of a yellow and red color, shading to deep red; -- called also sopsavine, and red shropsavine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something entirely soaked.
  • noun A piece of solid food to be soaked in liquid food.
  • noun Something given or done to pacify or bribe.
  • noun A weak, easily frightened or ineffectual person; a milksop
  • noun Gravy. (Appalachian)
  • verb To steep or dip in any liquid.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a concession given to mollify or placate
  • verb dip into liquid
  • verb be or become thoroughly soaked or saturated with a liquid
  • verb cover with liquid; pour liquid onto
  • noun piece of solid food for dipping in a liquid
  • noun a prescribed procedure to be followed routinely
  • verb give a conciliatory gift or bribe to

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English soppe, bread dipped in liquid, from Old English sopp- (in soppcuppe, cup for dipping bread in); see seuə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English soppe, from Old English sopp 'sopped bread', from Proto-Germanic *sauppa (compare Dutch sop, Old High German sopfa), deverbative of *sūpanan 'to sup'. More at sup; compare soup.

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Examples

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  • Also see sippet.

    May 25, 2011