mop
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /mɒp/
ipa: /mɑp/
rhymes: -ɒp
Forms: form: mops
Etymology: 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.
Senses: glosses: 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.
examples: text: He gave the floor a quick mop to soak up the spilt juice.
glosses: A wash with a mop; the act of mopping.
examples: text: He ran a comb through his mop and hurried out the door.
glosses: A dense head of hair.
examples: text: I means to goo to th' mop, 'er sez, fur I waants a chahinge.[…]'T wuz to w:Muckley mop 'er went.
ref: 1897, Hamilton Kingsford, Vigornian Monologues: A Series of Papers in Illustration of the Dialect of Worcestershire, page 18:
text: 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.
ref: 2014 August 15, Nicholas Fogg, Stratford-upon-Avon: The Biography:
text: 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.
ref: 2022, Graham Sutherland, Secret Warwick:
glosses: An annual fair where servants were historically hired.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2022, Graham Sutherland, Secret Warwick:
glosses: A tassel worn in a buttonhole to indicate ones occupation in such a fair.
examples: text: Mainstream in this ting but I'm fully on opps
Got shot with a mop but that boy never dropped
ref: 2021 July 4, M24, “Plugged In”, Fumez the Engineer (music), 2:16–2:19:
synonyms: word: firearm
word: gat
word: gun
word: iron
word: piece
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: A firearm particularly if it has a large magazine (compare broom, but still can be related to MP)
examples: text: Had his thot give me mop in the back of my Bimmer
ref: 2019, “Laneswitch”, in True 2 Myself, performed by Lil Tjay:
glosses: Fellatio.
topics: arts
graffiti
visual-arts
glosses: A squeezable high-flow paint marker with an extra-wide felt or foam tip.
topics: fishing
hobbies
lifestyle
glosses: A row of ropes dragged along the seabed for catching starfish.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1931, Folk-say, page 183:
glosses: A drunkard.
Derived terms: all mops and brooms
dishmop
mop-and-flop
mopboard
mop bucket
mophandle
mophead
mop-headed
mopholder
moplike
moppy
mop squeezer
mopstick
mopsy
Mopsy
moptop
mop-up
mop water
mopwater
on the mop
squeegee mop
suck the mop
that's the way the mop flops
whiting-mop