bop

¹ American  

[bop] / bɒp /

noun

1. Also called bebop.  early modern jazz developed in the early 1940s and characterized by often dissonant triadic and chromatic chords, fast tempos and eccentric rhythms, intricate melodic lines punctuated by pop-tune phrases, and emphasizing the inventiveness of soloists.

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verb (used without object)

bopped, bopping

1. Slang. to move, go, or proceed (often followed byon down ).

   Let's bop on down to the party.

bop ² American  

[bop] / bɒp /

verb (used with object)

bopped, bopping

1. to strike, as with the fist or a stick; hit.

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noun

1. a blow.

bop ¹ British  

/ bɒp /

noun

1. Originally called: bebop.  a form of jazz originating in the 1940s, characterized by rhythmic and harmonic complexity and instrumental virtuosity

2. informal a session of dancing to pop music

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verb

1. informal (intr) to dance to pop music

bop ² British  

/ bɒp /

verb

1. (tr) to strike; hit

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noun

1. a blow

Other Word Forms

• bopper
  noun

Etymology

Origin of bop¹

1945–50, (be)bop

Origin of bop²

First recorded in 1935–40; variant of bob ³

Explanation

If you bop your little brother, you hit him lightly. If you do this, he's probably going to bop you right back. The origin of the word bop is imitative: bop sounds like the noise your hand makes when you bop someone or something. You can also use bop to mean bebop, the fast-tempo jazz that became popular in the 1940s, after the swing era. The word comes from the jazz tradition of singing nonsense words like bebop and rebop.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bop bopped bopping

The company says its "companion-centric" device can interpret human gestures and bop to musical rhythms, as well as take selfies and steady videos.

From Barron's ● Jul. 19, 2026

Carpenter closed, as she always does, with “Espresso,” and if you’d assumed that by now this breezy electro-pop bop would inevitably have lost some of its fizz, think again.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2025

It’s scary, having a bot bop around the web for me, and there are real risks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025

It didn’t take more than a few days for Peter Cook, a marine mammal sciences professor at the New College of Florida, to train Ronan to bop her head to music.

From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2025

We tried to keep a bop in our step, tried to keep it cool, but by now we were pretty explicitly speed- walking.

From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore

In a sparkly gold dress, the 20-year-old floated above the pressure, bopped along to the music of Donna Summer and glided her way to stardom—and the top of the podium.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026

Szabolcs Csépe, from Budapest, bopped to over 3000 songs and burned more than 22,000 calories in his quest to romp into the record books.

From BBC ● Nov. 11, 2025

Deborah bopped from the cafeteria to another schoolroom, where another precinct was sharing the space.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2024

As five women including myself bopped around the Upper West Side on that brisk December afternoon, we stopped by the restaurant Barney's Greengrass.

From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2023

He bopped Mutto again with the muskrat carcass, chased him once around the table and out of the kitchen.

From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli

Behold the swaggy celebrity fans like Timothée Chalamet, the $10,000 nosebleed seats, the President of the United States bopping north to catch Monday’s Game 3 at Madison Square Garden.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026

Iran is no bastion of free expression, in other words, which anyone bopping to those raps about enacting revenge on “the Baal-worshipping Epstein crew” must remember.

From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2026

The aunties seemed genuinely delighted, bopping along to Bruno Mars as if this were the triumph of civic joy they had been waiting for since Election Day.

From Slate ● Jan. 3, 2026

Duncan appeared confident and poised as he took underhanded tosses from a team manager and fired passes, even bopping his head ever so slightly as Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” blared over the stadium loudspeakers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2025

And because this was hip-hop, the crew would do that thing where you shoot your arm out in front of you with your palm flat, bopping it up and down to the beat.

From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah