Mop Meaning
/mɒp/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn implement for washing floors or similar, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle.
nounA wash with a mop; the act of mopping.
Sentence Examples
Please clean the floor with this mop.
Tom cleaned the floor with a mop.
I cannot mop this floor. It's too dirty.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
She used a wet ____ to clean the dirty kitchen floor quickly after cooking.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I need to ____ the kitchen floor because I accidentally spilled a large glass of sticky orange juice on it earlier this morning.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English mappe (also as mappel), perhaps borrowed from Walloon mappe (“napkin”), from Latin mappa (“napkin, cloth”). Believed to be from a Semitic source, variously claimed as Phoenician or Punic (the latter by Quintilian). Compare Modern Hebrew מַפָּה (mapá, “a map; a cloth”) (shortened from מַנְפָּה (manpah, “fluttering banner, streaming cloth”)). Doublet of map, nape, and nappe.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"I means to goo to th' mop, 'er sez, fur I waants a chahinge.[…]'T wuz to w:Muckley mop 'er went."
— 1897, Hamilton Kingsford, Vigornian Monologues: A Series of Papers in Illustration of the Dialect of Worcestershire, page 18:
"The Mop Fairs attracted the attention of moralists. The hiring system was seen as a means to acquire girls for prostitution; although there is no evidence that this occurred in Stratford, where girls plying for hire were generally accompanied by their formidable mothers."
— 2014 August 15, Nicholas Fogg, Stratford-upon-Avon: The Biography:
"Mop Fairs: Today's annual events are the modern version of the old hiring fairs, where people attended seeking employment or to change it. They are named after the practice of hopefully skilled employees carrying tassels, known as mops, in their buttonholes indicating their occupation. Those who had no trade carried a mop head. At the end of the following week, they could change employers or employees, at what was called the Runaway Mop."
— 2022, Graham Sutherland, Secret Warwick:
"Mainstream in this ting but I'm fully on opps
Got shot with a mop but that boy never dropped"
— 2021 July 4, M24, “Plugged In”, Fumez the Engineer (music), 2:16–2:19:
"Had his thot give me mop in the back of my Bimmer"
— 2019, “Laneswitch”, in True 2 Myself, performed by Lil Tjay:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She used a wet ____ to clean the dirty kitchen floor quickly after cooking.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I need to ____ the kitchen floor because I accidentally spilled a large glass of sticky orange juice on it earlier this morning.