Dictionary.com
definitions
  • synonyms

chopper

[chop-er]
See more synonyms for chopper on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a person or thing that chops.
  2. a short ax with a large blade, used for cutting up meat, fish, etc.; butcher's cleaver.
  3. a prehistoric implement made by striking flakes off one or both sides of a stone, considered the oldest known worked stone tool.
  4. choppers, Slang. the teeth.
  5. Informal. a helicopter.
  6. Slang. a motorcycle.
  7. a device for interrupting an electric current or a beam of light at regular intervals.
Show More
verb (used without object)
  1. Informal.
    1. to travel by helicopter: We choppered into midtown from the airport.
    2. to travel by motorcycle.
Show More

Origin of chopper

1545–55; 1950–55 for def 5; chop1 + -er1
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for chopper

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • This was a chopper very popular in the camp, and known by the name of Jabe.

    Earth's Enigmas

    Charles G. D. Roberts

  • The woods of America for the first time rang to the chopper.

  • The chopper seized one of the spears, and rushed after the old one.

  • Here comes a candle to light you to bed,And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

  • It must have broken his heart to know that his lovely ship was getting the chopper.

    Accidental Death

    Peter Baily

British Dictionary definitions for chopper

chopper

noun
  1. mainly British a small hand axe
  2. a butcher's cleaver
  3. a person or thing that cuts or chops
  4. an informal name for a helicopter
  5. mainly British a slang name for penis
  6. a device for periodically interrupting an electric current or beam of radiation to produce a pulsed current or beamSee also vibrator (def. 2)
  7. a type of bicycle or motorcycle with very high handlebars and an elongated saddle
  8. NZ a child's bicycle
  9. obsolete, slang, mainly US a sub-machine-gun
Show More
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for chopper

n.

1550s, "one who chops," agent noun from chop (v.1). Meaning "meat cleaver" is by 1818. Meaning "helicopter" is from 1951, Korean War military slang (cf. egg-beater); as a type of stripped-down motorcycle (originally prefered by Hell's Angels) from 1965.

Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
chopper in Science

chopper

[chŏp′ər]
  1. A crudely flaked, unifacial core tool, especially one associated with the Oldowan stone culture of the early Paleolithic Period.
Show More
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.