Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gup n.1

also gup-gup, gup-shup
[Hind. ?? (gap), gossip, rumour, which borrowed in turn from the Turkish gep or geb, word, saying or talk and the Persian guftan or guptan, to say. The word made its way to the UK c.1868, the year in which a highly critical account of South Indian society was published under the pseudonym of ‘Gup’; thus Hind. ???-??? (gap-??p), reduplicative of ?? (gap), gossip, rumour]

gossip.

Show quotations
[Ind]Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin I 271: ‘They say you are going to get married, is it true, Rattleton?’ ‘Oh, nonsense! mere Barrackpore gup and scandal’.
[Ind]C. Campbell Rough Recollections III 203: ‘[H]e is fat and foolish, and moreover, sahib, the gup-chup – (gossip) – is, that his wife, in a jealous fit the other eve, because she saw him speak to me, gave him a blow with the dòee (ladle) on the shin, which has lamed him’.
[Ind]J.H. Stocqueler Oriental Interpreter 94/2: GUP, or GUP-SHUP, the origin of gossip, to which, in India, it bears the closest possible affinity.
[Ind]J.H. Stocqueler ‘The crime of colour’ in Patriotic Fund Jrnl 17 Feb. 165/1: ‘Well, have you heard the gup (gossip)?’.
, , [UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[Ind]Out of the Meshes I 42: ‘We’ll drive to the club to hear the gup’.
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[UK]J. Grant Fairer Than a Fairy II 52: ‘But it is always the season here for plenty of gup among the Ditchers, as the residents of Calcutta are called,’ Jack remarked.
[UK]H. Smart Hard Lines III 135: Our Eastern empire is much addicted to what they term ‘gup,’ whereby they mean gossip, scandal.
[Aus]Leader (Melbourne) 25 Nov. 29/3: ‘His old nabob of father got heaps of ‘loot’ in the early days. Bled old Rani Jopal of lakhs during the Mutiny,’ chirped the senior lieutenant. ‘All gup. (gossip),’ replied Captain Polhill. ‘Some bebecouf (idiot) invented that lie.’.
[UK]J. Conrad Secret Agent (1994) 65: The rest’s mere newspaper gup.
[UK](con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 113: Gup: (Hind.—Gup). News. canteen gossip.
[UK]B. Lubbock Bully Hayes 160: The gup in the purlieus of Hongkong was that he was making a fortune.
[Ind]E. Thompson Indian Day 16: ‘Of course, we have only the newspapers and common gup to go by’.
[UK]J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 212: Valerie stared hard at Tony, beseeching him not to fall for that line of gup.
[Ind]K.A. Abbas Bombay, my Bombay! 70: There was a great ha-ha besides gup-shup over cups of tea and coffee which my elder sister gladly prepared at that unearthly hour.
[Ind]K. Singh Truth, Love and a Little Malice 410: I cut out time-wasting pastimes such as prayer, meditation, religious ritual, gup-shup with friends, cocktail parties and dinners.