chop-chop
Americanadverb
adverb
Etymology
Origin of chop-chop
1825–35; repetitive compound based on Chinese Pidgin English chop quick, of uncertain origin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He does screenplays at the same chop-chop pace.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 5, 2018
In four or five chop-chop years, the mill town became “The Shingle Capital of the World,” and more often than not, it smelled like cedar.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 8, 2017
Finally, the moment nears "to do chop-chop," as M'sieur Pierre puts it childishly; and childishly, too, the prisoner seeks to save his last shred of self-respect as he mutters: "By myself, by myself."
From Time Magazine Archive
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From the urgent chop-chop of a loudspeaker in a nearby village, Adams could tell that his landing had been spotted and that a search party was being organized.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Then she heard the chop-chop of his axe on the deck, and the fall of something into the water, and he came down laughing at the start it had given him also.
From Maid of the Mist by John Oxenham
“It was just chop, chop, chop,” Canady said.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 5, 2020
So you haven't anymore got that chop chop chop of the keys – you've got an almost silent process so you can hear the rhythm in your head better.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 26, 2011
She weeded the fields carefully with her hoe—chop, chop, chop.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
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Standing it up, with the handle leaning against the enchanted tree, he stepped back a few feet and shouted: "Chop, chop, chop!"
From The Magic Soap Bubble by E. I. Jones
If you order a fire you say something like this: "Fire makee, chop, chop, here, makee fire number one," chop being quick, and number one good, or "first-class."
From The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither by Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy) Bird
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.