lop off

English

Etymology

See lop.

Pronunciation

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

lop off (third-person singular simple present lops off, present participle lopping off, simple past and past participle lopped off)

1. (transitive) To cut off as the top or extreme part of anything, especially to prune a small limb off a shrub or tree, or sometimes to behead someone.
   • 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:

     Sinkfield reduced his guests to myopic drunkenness one evening, induced them to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He sent them packing next day armed with their charts and five quarts of shinny in their saddlebags—two apiece and one for the Governor.

   • 2021 June 30, Philip Haigh, “Regional trains squeezed as ECML congestion heads north”, in RAIL, number 934, page 52:

     TPE's Manchester Airport-Newcastle has both ends lopped off to become Manchester Victoria-York.

Synonyms

• (to cut off): snead

Translations

cut off top or end

• Galician: fanar, demoucar
• Latin: praecīdō
• Spanish: cortar (es), mochar (es), podar (es)
• Swedish: snoppa (sv)

See also

• defalcate