Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to assault (cite 1927 is used as ‘rob’ or ‘mug’).

1833		J. Hall Soldier’s Bride 226: The other had hopped on him without provocation.
1847		in N.E. Eliason Tarheel Talk (1956) 153: He got mad & I thought he would ‘hop’ me as granny says.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 107: When we showed ’em our sole remaining six bits we were hopped.
1927		F.M. Thrasher Gang 315: The gang does not engage in shoplifting [...] They prefer the less risky business of ‘making’ (robbing) the drunks. [...] ‘They hop the poor drunken Polish fellows,’ said Silver.
1937		J. Archibald ‘Crash on Delivery’ in Flying Aces Nov. 🌐 We’ll let him get into the chateau —and then hop him!
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 51: Two of us cons got to slugging with reckless abandon in the boxing ring and my foe’s buddies hopped me while going into mess.

2. (US black) to dance, to cavort, to play.

1849		Sam Sly 17 Feb. 2/3: He advises Miss M—y—w, who goes to a dancing academy on Stepney-green, not to dance so often with Mr. C—p, but to hop a little with other gentlemen.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 31 May 12/1: They [are] learning to hop, and they think when they can hop they will be able to catch the girls.
1922		‘Jaybird Died With The Whooping Cough’ in T.W. Talley Negro Folk Rhymes 36: Den he caper on down to de dancin’. / Dey hopped it low, an’ dey hopped it high; [...] Det hopped it fer, an’ dey hopped it nigh; / Dat fiddle an’ bow jes make ’em fly.
1935		Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton, Qld) 1 Aug. 8/2: I’ve danced with decent sheilas, and waltzed with some good sorts, / Have hopped with pretty tabbies, some proper, some good sports.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1947		M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.
1952		E. Brown Trespass 137: Hopping and jitterbugging all night long and ’way into the morning.
c.1960		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 306: If all the young ladies liked to hop, / I’d hang around and watch their tits flop.

3. to depart.

1872		E. Crapsey Nether Side of NY 15: [Bank sneaks] infest in turn every large city, or, in the words of a policeman who knows every one of them, ‘they jump into a town, work the street for a couple of days, and then hop away’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 10/4: At this the defiers of the elements girded up their shoddy, and ‘hopped.’.
1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 34: He blew the gaff and I had to hop double quick.
1912		J. London Smoke Bellew (1926) 120: ‘Hop along, sister Mary,’ Shorty gaily greeted him. ‘Keep movin’.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 101/2: Hop. To become a fugitive; to lam.
1962		S. Paige Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever 35: It didn’t take him long to convince me that I ought to hop to Chattanooga. Fifty dollars a month was big money to me.

4. (US) to jump onto (occas. off) a moving vehicle, esp. a train (and thus evade a fare); to get a lift or ride; to catch a train or aeroplane; thus hopping n.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 243: There’s a freight or two out for the South this afternoon, Willie [...] better hop one.
1908		Sun (NY) 10 May 8/6: He was just about to hop a train for New York.
1916		‘A-No. 1’ Snare of the Road 16: In the intervals between train hopping [...] and hobo chasing, we played mischievous tricks.
1916		‘Thieves’ Sl.’ Toronto Star 19 Jan. 2/5: TO CATCH A TRAIN Hop a rattler.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 397: I tried to hop a freight at Marseilles.
1921		N. Putnam West Broadway 88: ‘I’ll go back with the next feller that passes to Uniontown for gas [...] and hop a ride back’.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 166: Keep your eyes peeled for a truck. We might hop a ride.
1927		W.R. Morse ‘Stanford Expressions’ in AS II:6 276: hop a rattler — board a trolley car.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 16: One said she saw him hitching on behind an icewagon [...] another said she noticed him hopping a Fairmount Part streetcar.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 67: We’d better keep out of sight if we want to hop that freight.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 142: I could hop a rattler back to New York.
1932		(con. 1912–17) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 695: Hopping rides on delivery wagons and trucks.
1933		N. Algren ‘So Help Me’ from Story mag. in Texas Stories (1995) 18: He ain’t goin’ to hop nothin’ but blind baggage on a silk manifest.
1939		G. Marx letter 24 June in Groucho Letters (1967) 20: In all my years of one night stands and ad-lib train hopping, I have never seen any scene like the one I witnessed last night.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 6: Sometimes we’d hop a freightcar to St Louis or Cape Girardeau.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 100: We hopped a rattler to New Hampshire and did a little look-see.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 22: During the depression [...] I used to hop freights at least once a month.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 161: He was hopping a plane back to California at the end of the week.
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 133: When I first come to New Orleans I was a ’bo hopped off a jolt.
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 55: He hops a freight to Detroit.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 2: Sure, you wanna hop a cab?
1976		Cab Calloway Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 16: I’d hop a car coming downtown.
1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 22: Why can’t that miserable old fart get off his own dead ass for once and hop his fuckin’ chopper and do it himself.
1993		L. Rodríguez Always Running (1996) 7: When he was about 10 years old he hopped a train from L.A. to Chicago.
1999		Indep. Rev. 21 May 14: Syd and Jimi had hopped the blue bus.
2002		J. Ridley Conversation with the Mann 29: On good days he looked like something that’s just come from hopping freight trains.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 86: The room where the main characters holed up before Eddie wigged and hopped a direct flight to Budapest.
2009		N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] The murderer had probably hopped a train and he could have been anywhere.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 29: I stole a pint of vodka and hopped a bus.
2018		‘Aidan Truhen’ Price You Pay 61: Hop the crosstown.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 20: [A] teenage Black kid who hopped the train.

5. a general greeting; in phr. how hops it?

1892

‘’Arry in Venice’ Punch 27 May 88/1: Dear Charlie, — ’ow ’ops it, my ’earty?

6. to make someone jump, to admonish and thus frighten someone.

1914		‘Bartimeus’ ‘The “Look-See”’ in Naval Occasions 122: ‘I’d make ’em ’op ...’ he murmured.
1919		Van Loan ‘Piute vs. Piute’ in Score by Innings (2004) 316: I hopped the Plumed Knight for the good of his soul, and all he could say for himself was that he had hurt his arm.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 228: I know how to hop those birds! I just give um the north and south.
1934		R. Sale ‘A Nose for News’ in Goulart (1967) 216: I hopped Rigo in an alley. He squealed.
1946		(con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 257: They came down three hours late this morning [and] the foreman hopped them about it.

7. to move from place to place; thus hopping n.

1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 209: Out Film Hopping the night before.
1921		H.B. Woolston Prostitution in the US 112: Many men who visit the red-light quarter do so merely to see the sights [...] many of them merely dance or take a drink, and go along. This ‘hopping’ or ‘chair-warming,’ as it is sometimes called, is not always encouraged.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 63: I didn’t know if he was living in town now with all the room-hopping he did.
1978		R. Charles Brother Ray 197: I mentioned my Cessna 310 to you. That’s the plane that I personally hopped around on back then.
1984		J. Ellroy Because the Night 135: ‘[T]here's so many bars on this strip that you can’t go home and change every time you hop one’.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 82: Rubes waved bingo sheets. Rubes hopped casinos.

8. (US) usu. of a man, to engage in sexual intercourse.

a.1929		Collection of Sea Songs 29: So he hopped her [HDAS].
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 186: Rush home, drink three beers, eat supper [...] hop the old lady and be sound asleep by 9.00.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 55: I’m going to end up basically hopping the girl in a minute.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 115: She tried to hop me in Reynords last weekend.

9. (orig. US black) of a place, e.g. a party or club, to pulsate with excitement.

1952		I. Bolton Many Mansions in N.Y. Mosaic (1999) 481: With the victories in the Pacific, the Philippines regained, the islands hopped.
1961		R.A. Norton Through Beatnik Eyeballs 54: The pad not really hopping till half-time.
1980		P. Highsmith Boy Who Followed Ripley (1981) 249: Place must be hopping at night.
1984		D. Jenkins Life Its Ownself (1985) 206: Things were certainly hopping at Enjolie’s in Beverley Hills.
1993		I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 75: The frenetic dancing at rent parties was why they were also called house hops and jump joints. Some jazz authorities say these rollicking affairs were the source of the expressions the house really hopped and the joint really jumped.
2005		(con. 1950s) E. White My Lives 109: Mary, the joint is hopping tonight!

10. see carhop v.