Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a blow.

1932		J.L. Kuethe ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 329: bop — n. — a blow.
1938		M. Rand ‘Clip-Joint Chisellers’ in Ten Story Gang Aug. 🌐 He landed a terrific bop on Shiv’s button and sent him staggering.
1944		R.L. Bellem ‘Focus on Death’ Hollywood Detective Jan. 🌐 No hard feelings for that bop on the jaw I gave you?
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 41: One bop on the scone an’ they stay down. Can’t improve on that.
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 204: ‘Gave her quite a bop, eh what?’ [...] ‘As beautiful a straight right to the belly as I ever saw.’.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 73: One good bop. Put that nigger back in his place.

2. (US) a member of a teen street gang.

1959		H. Salisbury Shook-Up Generation (1961) 21: Kemo [...] one of the greatest bops in gang history.
1960		I. Freeman Out of the Burning (1961) 12: I bet the four-eyed mushmouth had never seen the country club he had sent hundreds of bops to.
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 66: All you cool cats, bop daddies, and pennyweight pimps who think you know the score, / listen while I tell you of your superior: Herman from the Shark-Tooth Shore.

3. (US) a fight between teen street gangs .

1962

(con. 1953–7) L. Yablonsky Violent Gang (1967) 63: A ‘bop’. That can be a small group, five, ten, twenty guys from one team, having it out with the same number from a different team.

4. a dance.

1971		H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: bop n. 1. a dance.
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 106: If you see them at a dance ‘having a bop’ at some May Ball.
1999		J. Poller Reach 17: I met Liz at a Newnham bop.

5. (Scot.) a hairstyle copied from that of Elvis Presley in 1960s.

1973

(con. mid-1960s) J. Patrick Glasgow Gang Observed 89: The Blue Angels copied their hairstyle from Elvis, a cut called ‘The Bop,’ where the hair is combed upwards from the sides towards the middle, which falls over the forehead [...] to keep it in place the hair was sleeked with vaseline.

6. (drugs) an injection of a narcotic drug; the immediate effect of any drug, e.g. a puff on a cannabis cigarette.

1967

P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 329: I feel way down deep somewhere the urge to put my arm down beside his in a humble-pie attitude, and take my place among my boys who got beat not by the bop.

7. (US black) a bouncing style of walking, a stride.

1994

N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 293: He [...] walked with a hard bop that would put pimpers to shame.