hopper

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hoppere, also hoper and oppere,^[2][3][4] formed from English hop + -er.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} The OED and Barnhart think an Old English *hoppere (“dancer”) probably existed, since Old English had the feminine hoppestre (“female dancer”),^[5][2][6] and the name is found as a surname, perhaps of a dancer, from 1203.^[2] Etymonline gives the mill hopper its own entry, but derives it from the same verb, from the shaking movement of the grain or of the mechanism itself;^[6] the OED and the American Heritage Dictionary keep it as a sense of one word.^[5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hopping animal: the plural opperes, locusts, appears about 1250 in the Middle English Genesis and Exodus,^[5][2][3] later in gras-hoppere, grasshopper.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The container sense, a receiver shaped like an inverted cone through which grain passes into a mill, is recorded as hoper in 1277 by Barnhart^[2] and first quoted by the OED from Chaucer's Reeve's Tale (about 1390).^[5][4] It was named from the shaking or hopping motion with which the grain passed through to the millstones;^[10][6] Johnson (1755) explained it as "always hopping, or in agitation", and compared the French name trémie.^[11] A sower's seed basket was also called a hopper from about 1300, a use now only dialectal,^[5][9] and Middle English glossaries give it for a corn basket.^[3] From the 18th century the word was applied to any similar device that feeds material into a machine (1763), to a barge that carries off dredged mud and drops it through its bottom (1759), and to a railway wagon that unloads through the floor (1862).^[5][6] The sense "person who hops, dancer" is quoted by the OED only from about 1480, and the slang uses of the 20th century include a baseball that bounces off the ground (1914)^[5] and, in American slang, a toilet.^[12] In American English a hopper is also the box into which a bill is dropped before it is formally introduced in a legislature.^[10] In Irish and southern English dialect a hopper was a maggot that infests cheese and bacon, able to jump by curling and straightening itself.^[13]

Timeline

• 1203 – as a surname, perhaps of a dancer.^[2]
• c. 1250 – hopping insects, locusts, in Genesis and Exodus.^[5][2]
• 1277 – hoper, the hopper of a mill.^[2]
• before 1300 – a seed basket.^[5]
• c. 1390 – a mill hopper, in Chaucer.^[5]
• c. 1480 – a person who hops; a dancer.^[5]
• 1759 – a barge for dredged mud.^[5]
• 1763 – any hopper-shaped device feeding material to a machine.^[5]
• 1862 – a railway hopper car.^[5][6]
• 1914 – a bouncing ball, in American baseball slang.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person or animal that hops, especially a hopping insect such as a grasshopper or the young of a locust.^[7][10][14]
2. A container, usually shaped like a funnel, that holds loose material such as grain or coal and lets it out through an opening at the bottom: The farmer emptied the sacks into the hopper of the mill.^[10][14][5]
3. A freight car with doors in its floor for unloading its load; a hopper car.^[10][14][5]
4. A barge that carries away the mud from a dredging machine and drops it through an opening in its bottom.^[5][15]
5. A box into which a bill is placed until it is formally introduced in a legislature; informally, a place where something waits to be dealt with.^[10]
6. In a piano, the part at the back of a key that raises the hammer.^[5][15]
7. (US slang) A toilet.^[12]

Word family

• clodhopper
• froghopper
• planthopper
• treehopper
• rockhopper
• grasshopper
• hopper car

Related words

• hop

Usage notes

A separate hopper, a hop-picker, formed from hop the plant, is recorded from 1719;^[5][9][8] Merriam-Webster also lists a brewery worker who puts dried hops into casks.^[7] In Scottish and northern English dialect the word has the form happer, and hopper-arsed meant having large buttocks.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers