sop
noun
a piece of solid food, as bread, for dipping in liquid food.
sop
1 American
[sop]
/ sɒp /
noun
-
sops
plural
verb (used with object)
-
sops,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sopped,
past participle, past
-
sopping
present participle
-
to dip or soak in liquid food.
to sop bread in gravy.
-
to drench.
-
to take up (liquid) by absorption (usually followed byup ).
He used bread to sop up the gravy.
verb (used without object)
-
sops,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sopped,
past participle, past
-
sopping
present participle
-
to be or become soaking wet.
-
(of a liquid) to soak (usually followed byin ).
SOP
2
American
Or
S.O.P.
abbreviation
sop.
3
American
abbreviation
sop
1
British
/ sɒp /
noun
-
(often plural) food soaked in a liquid before being eaten
-
a concession, bribe, etc, given to placate or mollify
a sop to one's feelings
-
informal a stupid or weak person
verb
-
(tr) to dip or soak (food) in liquid
-
to soak or be soaked
SOP
2
British
abbreviation
sop.
3
British
abbreviation
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
sopsimple
-
sopssimple
-
have soppedperfect
-
has soppedperfect
-
am soppingprogressive
-
are soppingprogressive
-
is soppingprogressive
-
have been soppingperfect progressive
-
has been soppingperfect progressive
Past
-
soppedsimple
-
had soppedperfect
-
was soppingprogressive
-
were soppingprogressive
-
had been soppingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sop1
First recorded before 1000; (for the noun) Middle English; Old English sopp; cognate with Old Norse soppa; verb derivative of the noun; see sup 3
Origin of SOP2
First recorded in 1940–45
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:
But there’s something uniquely insidious about how the phone is eager to sop up the bounty of time that retirement has granted me.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026
A hedge-fund strategy known as the “basis trade” has helped sop up more Treasury issuance.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 23, 2026
But if there aren’t enough home listings to sop up that demand, then price growth—which has petered out to a rate slower than wage growth—could reignite.
From Barron's ● Jan. 10, 2026
“There was also a man whose cell was covered in mold and water and he was using his clothes to sop up the water,” Broder said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2024
I have thrown this routing in as a sop and shall not make a habit of it.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
Former members of the SAS, the army's elite special forces regiment, have told Panorama that they believe the veto outlined in the SOP document represents a clear conflict of interest for UK Special Forces.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2024
To that end, the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Health funded a $25,000 pilot project to test the SOP in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 18, 2024
The SOP for maintenance on a piece of company equipment is best served with a list format, while the SOP for submitting forms to human resources would best be described with a flow chart.
From Encyclopedia.com ● Feb. 13, 2018
Each SOP varies with its degree of detail.
From Encyclopedia.com ● Feb. 13, 2018
By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 pounds including the liner and camouflage cover.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
The second act begins to drag with slapdash vaudeville showcases that seem like sops to the performers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2025
The donutlike gram fritters are fluffy sops for the sauces.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 20, 2023
However you cheeseburger, a few qualities are paramount: flavorful meat, melty-bubbly cheese, a bun that sops, and toppings that complement without stealing the show.
From Salon ● May 27, 2022
At the highest level, therefore, Mr Xi seems to have given sops to other groups.
From Economist ● Oct. 26, 2017
But give them one minute longer and I’d end up pulling Fern off of Vonetta and mopping up sops of water splashed onto the bathroom tiles.
From "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia
The tofu was cooked beautifully and sopped up the sauce incredibly well, with savory and herbaceous flavor notes of soy, sesame and cilantro permeating the protein.
From Salon ● May 21, 2025
With the table and seat sufficiently sopped, McDermott smiled.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 22, 2024
Stale bread sopped up more batter, giving the pudding a forgiving crunch.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 30, 2019
Instead, the flaky fish is simmered in a subtle sauce of saffron, tomato and coconut milk, the kind that’s best when sopped up with white rice.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 27, 2016
In addition, we should not imagine that relations between Muralug Islanders and Cape York Aborigines were an uninterrupted love feast at which Aborigines eagerly sopped up culture from island teachers.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Yet under the surface, violent moves have been playing out between the big spenders of the artificial-intelligence race and those sopping up the cash.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 9, 2026
“I’m always thinking about sopping up flavors,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
The chewy morsels come sopping in soy sauce and flecked with chile flakes, with a rich and juicy meat filling.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2025
“It’s only when there’s a lot of fresh fruit that the bottom tends to get sopping wet.”
From Salon ● Oct. 26, 2024
Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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.
