Definitions

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

  • adverb Right away; quickly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Be quick; make haste.

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

  • interjection Used to urge someone to do something quickly
  • adverb slang Quickly.
  • noun Australia, informal Tobacco that is produced and sold without excise (tax), and therefore cheap and illegal.

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

  • adverb with rapid movements

Etymologies

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

[Reduplication of Chinese Pidgin English chop, quick, of Chinese dialectal origin; Cantonese gap1 and Mandarin , hurried, both from Middle Chinese , hurried.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Chinese Pidgin English, from Cantonese 急急 (gāpgāp, "quick").

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Examples

  • Mr Crow said cigarette companies would be forced to drastically cut prices because no-name "chop-chop" tobacco and cigarettes - which cost as little as 30 per cent of a regular packet - would be more attractive.

    NEWS.com.au | Top Stories 2011

  • Mr Crow said cigarette companies would be forced to drastically cut prices because no-name "chop-chop" tobacco and cigarettes - which cost as little as 30 per cent of a regular packet - would be more attractive.

    NEWS.com.au | Top Stories 2011

  • If the sonnets, odes, and elegies are primarily concerned with "memory, private reclamation, and linguistic chop-chop," as Biespiel has it, why would a public yearning for "moral persuasion" bother with it?

    Saying Something 2010

  • If the sonnets, odes, and elegies are primarily concerned with "memory, private reclamation, and linguistic chop-chop," as Biespiel has it, why would a public yearning for "moral persuasion" bother with it?

    Outside the Realm of Poetry 2010

  • If the sonnets, odes, and elegies are primarily concerned with "memory, private reclamation, and linguistic chop-chop," as Biespiel has it, why would a public yearning for "moral persuasion" bother with it?

    The Reading Experience 2010

  • If the sonnets, odes, and elegies are primarily concerned with "memory, private reclamation, and linguistic chop-chop," as Biespiel has it, why would a public yearning for "moral persuasion" bother with it?

    May 2010 2010

  • If the sonnets, odes, and elegies are primarily concerned with "memory, private reclamation, and linguistic chop-chop," as Biespiel has it, why would a public yearning for "moral persuasion" bother with it?

    Poetry 2010

  • In capitalist, theocratic societies like fascist Saudi Arabia, the consequences of questioning religious authority often leads to capital punishment in public places known commonly as chop-chop square where, among many other cases, a woman loses her head because she's considered a witch for listening to music by the Beatles.

    Mexico: Sex Slaves (Part I) 2010

  • I want to suggest that a great public will peer into the world of poetry if the poets will speak outside of the chiseled monuments of poems and distinct aesthetic debates directly to matters beyond memory, private reclamation, and linguistic chop-chop.

    Why Aren't Poets More Politically Active? 2010

  • In capitalist, theocratic societies like fascist Saudi Arabia, the consequences of questioning religious authority often leads to capital punishment in public places known commonly as chop-chop square where, among many other cases, a woman loses her head because she's considered a witch for listening to music by the Beatles.

    Printing: Mexico: Sex Slaves (Part I) 2010

Comments

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  • I say this all the time -- but I'm not sure why. I mean, I know what I mean by it -- hurry up -- but I don't know why I say "chop-chop" instead.

    May 5, 2009

  • TFD suggests the 'chop' part of chopstick comes from the Cantonese for 'quick'; chop-chop may be a derivation of that meaning. Or it might just be a calque, but I'm not sure if there's a 'quick-quick' phrase in Cantonese.

    May 5, 2009

  • See also chop chop.

    May 5, 2009