Definitions

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

  • noun One that hops.
  • noun A usually funnel-shaped container in which materials, such as grain or coal, are stored in readiness for dispensation.
  • noun A freight car with a door in the floor through which materials are unloaded.
  • noun A box in which a bill is placed pending formal introduction before a legislature.
  • noun Informal A place in which something is held in readiness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In geology, a hopper-shaped pit or depression in the land.
  • Having the form of an inverted pyramid: as, a hopper ship, the bottom of which consists of a series of hoppers: a type of vessel used on the Great Lakes for carrying bulk cargoes.
  • noun A hop-picker.
  • noun In brewing, a vat in which the infusion of hops is prepared to be added to the wort.
  • noun One who or that which hops.
  • noun Specifically — A cheese-hopper.
  • noun A butterfly: same as skipper
  • noun A grasshopper
  • noun A saltatorial homopterous insect; a cercopid, in a broad sense: as, a froghopper; a tree-hopper.
  • noun A saltatorial beetle; one of the Halticidœ.
  • noun A seal of the second year.
  • noun A wild swan.
  • noun plural A game in which the players hop or leap on one leg; hop-scotch.
  • noun A trough, usually shaped like an inverted cone, through which grain or anything to be ground or crushed passes into a mill: so called because at one time it had a hopping or shaking motion. It is now stationary, and leads the grain to the shaking-shoe.
  • noun A tray or basket in which a sower carries seed; a seed-basket.
  • noun A boat having a compartment with a movable bottom, to receive the mud or gravel from a dredging-machine and convey it to deep water, where, on opening the bottom, the mud or gravel falls out. Also called hopper-barge.
  • noun Same as hopper-car.
  • noun In a double-action pianoforte movement, a piece attached to the back of a key to raise the hammer.
  • noun Same as hoppet, 3.

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

  • noun One who, or that which, hops.
  • noun A chute, box, or receptacle, usually funnel-shaped with an opening at the lower part, for delivering or feeding any material, as to a machine; , into a car.
  • noun (Mus.) See Grasshopper, 2.
  • noun A game. See Hopscotch.
  • noun See Grasshopper, and Frog hopper, Grape hopper, Leaf hopper, Tree hopper, under Frog, Grape, Leaf, and Tree.
  • noun The larva of a cheese fly.
  • noun (Naut.) A vessel for carrying waste, garbage, etc., out to sea, so constructed as to discharge its load by a mechanical contrivance; -- called also dumping scow.
  • noun (Metal.) the apparatus at the top of a blast furnace, through which the charge is introduced, while the gases are retained.
  • noun a rake in a mill, moving in a circle to spread meal for drying, and to draw it over an opening in the floor, through which it falls.
  • noun a water-closet, without a movable pan, in which the receptacle is a funnel standing on a draintrap.
  • noun a faucet or valve for flushing the hopper of a water-closet.

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

  • noun A temporary storage bin, filled from the top and emptied from the bottom, often funnel-shaped.
  • noun A funnel-shaped section at the top of a drainpipe used to collect water, from above, from one or more smaller drainpipes.
  • noun One who hops.
  • noun The immature form of a locust
  • noun An artificial fishing lure
  • noun An escapement lever in a piano; a grasshopper.

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

  • noun terrestrial plant-eating insect with hind legs adapted for leaping
  • noun funnel-shaped receptacle; contents pass by gravity into a receptacle below
  • noun (baseball) a hit that travels along the ground
  • noun someone who hops
  • noun a machine used for picking hops

Etymologies

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

[Sense 2, from the shaking or hopping motion of grain hoppers as grain passed through them to the mill.]

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Examples

  • What's interesting about the mental hopper is that when something goes in there, I can usually figure out a way to make it happen (except sex at 13).

    A Conversation with Erica Bauermeister 2010

  • I'd say that artificial foam hopper is closer to a fly than a 4 au natural bunny pike fly.

    Raising Hackles with Synthetic Fly Materials... 2009

  • What's interesting about the mental hopper is that when something goes in there, I can usually figure out a way to make it happen (except sex at 14).

    Erica Bauermeister biography 2009

  • I'd say that artificial foam hopper is closer to a fly than a 4 au natural bunny pike fly.

    Raising Hackles with Synthetic Fly Materials... 2009

  • A pipe is placed just beneath the surface of the water, and this pipe leads to a pump on shore which sucks the berries into a metal box called a hopper.

    Unfinished Symphony V.C. Andrews® 1997

  • A pipe is placed just beneath the surface of the water, and this pipe leads to a pump on shore which sucks the berries into a metal box called a hopper.

    Unfinished Symphony V.C. Andrews® 1997

  • Then, we're off for Klah ... if I can find the settings on the D-hopper, that is.

    Myth-Nomers And Im-Pervections Asprin, Robert 1987

  • Under the hopper were the ends of two inclined chutes extending out sidewise beyond the car -- one to the right and one to the left -- and over the slab molds on each side.

    Concrete Construction Methods and Costs Halbert Powers Gillette

  • Taking advantage of this fact, the fruit-grower may jar them on sheets; or, in large orchards, into a large canvas hopper, which is wheeled from tree to tree upon a wheelbarrow-like frame, and under the apex of which is a tin can into which the insects roll.

    Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) 1906

  • Oh, and they also will have the most lottery balls in next year's hopper, which is shaping up to be one of the worst drafts in recent history; maybe they'll wind up with Blake Griffin, who looks like another meh pro to me.

    Five Tool Tool - The Sports Blog That Loves You Back 2009

Comments

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  • That which hops, or:

    5. a funnel-shaped chamber or bin in which loose material, as grain or coal, is stored temporarily, being filled through the top and dispensed through the bottom.

    July 21, 2007

  • Name of the offspring of Sean Penn and Robin Wright.

    March 8, 2008