sop

«sop» in Mova's school dictionary: something small given to someone to calm them down or… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a sop, sops); verb (sop, sops, sopped, sopping — rare)

meaning for a pupil

1) A sop is something small given to someone to calm them down or keep them quiet, without really fixing the problem: a sop to the angry fans. tree →

2) (old) A sop is a piece of bread soaked in milk, soup or gravy. tree →

3) (rare verb) To sop up is to soak up liquid with bread or a cloth. tree →

sense in the lessons

Mostly used in news and adult talk: «a sop to voters» means a small gift meant to please them. The related word «sopping wet» means soaking wet (very common in the UK and Ireland). Phrases: «a sop to», «sop up the gravy», «sopping wet».

examples

• The free badge was just a sop to the angry customers. tree →
• He sopped up the gravy with his bread. tree →
• I came home from the rain sopping wet. tree →
• The small pay rise was a sop to the workers. tree →
• In the old story, the boy fed sops of bread to the dog. tree →
• The extra playtime was a sop to stop us complaining. tree →

note

Spelling: sop, sopped, sopping (double p). Do not confuse with «soap», «sob» or «stop». Also an abbreviation SOP (standard operating procedure, the usual set of steps at work).

In the corpora

• And mistakes like reading «shop» as «sop» are normal: the child read the s and missed its partner h.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «sop» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.