Lop for Dummies

Lop is a word that might sound a bit strange at first, but don't worry, I'm here to explain it to you! Think of a lop as a way of saying that something is hanging or dangling down in a loose and floppy way. You know when you see a dog with long ears, like a basset hound, and those ears hang down so low that they almost touch the ground? Well, we can say its ears are lopped because they are hanging down in a loose and floppy manner.

Lop can also be used to describe the action of cutting or chopping off something in a quick and sometimes careless way. Imagine you have a branch on a tree that is sticking out and you want to remove it. You take a big swing with your saw and chop off the branch in one clean cut. That's what we call lopping off the branch.

So, in a nutshell, lop means something that is hanging or dangling down in a loose and floppy manner. It can also mean to cut or chop off something in a quick and sometimes careless way. Now, imagine a little toy monkey with a long tail that swings from side to side, its tail would be lopping because it's hanging down and swaying. Or picture a gardener using big shears to quickly and forcefully chop off some overgrown vines, that's lopping.