Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a blow to the face or head.

1793		Sporting Mag. Jan. 198/1: Mendoza claims the honour of inventing the chopper (a blow struck on the face with the back of the hand). [Ibid.] Feb. I 290/1: He spars somewhat in the Mendoza-style, hitting the chopper very frequently.
1804		Sporting Mag. Mar. XXIII 352/1: There, my boy, that was a chopper! But t’other has bung’d up his eye.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress xxx: A chopper is a blow, struck on the face with the back of the hand.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 50: Chopper (ring) — a blow that descends straight down the features, the knuckles making fine work thereon.
1833		‘Tom’s Education’ in Tommarroo Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 351: l gave one a topper, / Another a chopper, / And show’d them that I’d been to school.
1838		Cornwall Chron. (Launceston) 10 June 1/5: [He] let fly a left-handed lunge at the Ruffian’s jugular, which was [...] returned by a well planted chopper on the wing, that tapped his Reverence’s claret .
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 4 Feb. 2/2: He aimed a dreadful chopper at Baily’s nob.
1842		Flash (NY) 2 Oct. n.p.: Lize received a severe chopper upon the terrible handle of her countenance.
1850		Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Apr. 3/5: Getting closer to his man delivered a second terrific chopper on the nose.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 125: chopper. A blow given from above.
1889		Eve. News (Sydney) 11 Jan. 8/6: [T]he Australian smashed [him] on the mouth with his left and [...] sent in a heavy down-chopper on Mitchell’s ear.

2. the face; the jaw [chops n.¹ (1)].

1847

Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Feb. 2/2: The latter planted a harmless dig on the chopper.

3. (Aus.) a blow to the back of the neck, given with the side of the hand.

1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 17: Chopper, a blow given from behind.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

4. the penis.

c.1940		‘Poor Little Angeline’ in Bold (1979) 182: He tied the squire’s chopper in a bloody great knot.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 29: If there was one thing about him that annoyed me it was the way he covered his chopper when you walked in and he was having a bath.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 77: He took my hand rather boldly I thought – and placed it on his chopper.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 402: You don’t, he thought, as his flipper reached down for his chopper. You don’t do that to a guy.
1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: chopper n. Penis. As in: ‘That Andy Cole couldn’t score in a brothel with a £50 note wrapped round his chopper’.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 35: Angry purple veins like knotted string were straining fit to burst on his quivering chopper.
2014		http://theresmoretolifethanheavenandearth.wordpress.com 12 May 🌐 I reamember this guy whom I cought looking at the others ones doings and I said [...] I saw thee looking at that guys chopper .

5. as weapons.

6. (US) a ticket-taker, who tears or ‘chops’ tickets.

1899		N.Y. Journal 7 Feb. 4/2: The ticket agents and ‘choppers’ are shivering in their shoes. At several of the down stations where the traffic is light at night, the services of both the old agents and ‘choppers’ have been dispensed with [DAE].
1907		J. Corbin Cave Man 14: I once heard a ticket chopper in the Subway call a gang of undergraduates ‘rah-rah boys’.
1914		Wash. Herald (DC) 11 Jan. 34/2: ‘Buy me a ticket,’ I called to the astonished ‘chopper’ as I tossed a dollar bill.
1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 269: An’ w’en dat ticket-chopper ain’ lookin’ – zoo! Yuh go in.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

7. a helicopter; thus copper-chopper, a police helicopter.

1951		N.Y. Herald Trib. 16 Dec. II 5: Chopper: Helicopter.
1966		Sun. Times 5 June n.p.: ‘Put me down at Battalion HQ,’ he calls to the pilot. ‘There’s sniper fire reported on choppers in that area, General.’.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 179: You just sort of rise up out of yourself, you know, like a chopper, lifting right up out of there.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 43: The choppers could only go out there when they said there was no incoming.
1998		C. Fleming High Concept 123: The National Guard comes down with choppers and flame-throwers.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 114: We were shitting us sens in case the copper-chopper turned up.
2009		P. Temple Truth 133: It’s a block of flats, third-floor flat. The chopper’s looking now.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 132: Army choppers shot down over hills that looked like Ayrshire.
2010		K. Richards Life 282: We all piled into this overloaded chopper.
2012		G. Johnstone ‘No Through Road’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] They’ve got some fucken black thing, unmarked, [...] but no chopper.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] The teevs have got their choppers up there but there’s nowhere to land’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Broken’ in Broken 41: Department choppers with cameras.
2022		Digga D. ‘Hold It Down’ 🎵 I'm lookin' out the window, all I'm seein' is lights / Dogs and choppers.

8. (also chopper bike) a cut-down, ‘chopped’ motorbike, spec. a Harley-Davidson, preferred for speed and style by outlaw motorcycle gangs, e.g. Hell’s Angels.

1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 102: A chopped hog, or ‘chopper’, is little more than a heavy frame, a tiny seat and a massive [...] engine.
1971		J. Mandelkau Buttons 81: [picture caption] Tramp, Sergeant-at-Arms, doing a wheelie on his chopper.
1985		J. Wambaugh Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 7: There were a lot of Harley hogs and chopper bikes in or about the town.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 109: He looks ahead and sees [...] Zed’s Big Chrome Chopper with a teardrop gas tank.
2004		N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 261: He was building a 750cc chopper in his back yard.
2010		K. Richards Life 281: Because you can’t touch an Angel’s chopper, apparently. It’s absolutely verboten.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 97: [B]earded bikies on rumbling choppers.