collop

English

Etymology

Late Middle English, of North Germanic origin, from Swedish kalops (“stewed meat”), from Old Swedish kollops (“slices of beef stew”). Cognate to German Klops (“dish of meat made tender by beating”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒləp/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒləp
• Hyphenation: col‧lop

Noun

collop (plural collops)

1. (Northern England) A slice of meat.
2. (obsolete) A slice of bacon, a rasher.
3. A roll or fold of flesh on the body.
4. A small piece, portion, or slice of something.

Derived terms

• colloped
• Collop Monday
• Scotch collops

 

Verb

collop (third-person singular simple present collops, present participle colloping, simple past and past participle colloped)

1. To cut into collops (thin slices)
   • 1773, Philosophical Transactions, Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious in many Considerable Parts of the World, page 385:

     This induced me to make a further trial, and to get some of them colloped as we do oysters in shells, I swallowed them up myself.

   • 1874, Homer (J.B. Rose, translator), Homer's Iliad. Translated [into English Blank Verse] by J. B. Rose, page 433:

     They colloped it, and spitted skilfully, Then roasted carefully and slipped them off.

   • 1979, Lester Barber, Misogonus: Edited with an Introduction:

     I neither egged thee nor colloped thee. If I had egged thee, though mights yet chese.

   • 2016, P.F. Chisholm, A Chorus of Innocents:

     There was one fine bullock already butchered and being colloped by the cooking fires of the Burns and several sheep on the way to the same fate.

Scots

Etymology

Late Middle English, of North Germanic origin, from Swedish kalops (“stewed meat”), from Old Swedish kollops (“slices of beef stew”). Cognate to German Klops (“dish of meat made tender by beating”).

Noun

collop (plural collops)

1. A slice of meat.
   • 1834 [c. 1500], Walter Kennedy, “The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy”, in The Poems of William Dunbar, volume 2, Kennedy to Dunbar, page 81:

     Thow beggit with ane pardoun in all kirkis,
     Collapis, crudis, meill, grottis, gryce, and geiss

     You begged for a pardon in all churches / Collops, cheese curd, oatmeal, groats, suckling pigs, and geese

Verb

collop (third-person singular simple present collops, present participle collopin, simple past collopt, past participle collopt)

1. (obsolete) To cut into collops.
   • 1872, Alex. J. Warden, Burgh Laws of Dundee, page 36:

     Anent Flesheores—Item it is statut and ordainit […] also that na flesheer to Brugh nor land bring blawin flesh to this mercat nor collipit or cuted vpon vnder the shulders and that the head of the muttone be brought with the scheapes buik

     Regarding Butchers—It is hereby declared and ordained […] also that no butcher of the borough or region bring spoiled flesh to this market nor meat cut into collops or severed from under the forelegs and that the head of the sheep be brought with the sheep’s carcass

References

• Skeat, W. W. (1900). A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. United Kingdom: Harper, p. 88

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.