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strop

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strop¹

  • /stɹɒp/ UK
  • /stɹɑp/ US

Rhymes with -ɒp

Where it comes from

Same as strap (which see); recorded in English since 1702. The verb sense referring to honing a sharp edge is recorded since 1842.

noun strops

  1. A strap; more specifically a piece of leather or a substitute (notably canvas), or strip of wood covered with a suitable material, for honing a razor. Cheap razors are a mistake, as they soon lose their edge. A good razor requires no strop. It has been suggested as an excellent plan to have a case of seven razors—one for each day in the week—so that they are all equally used.

    Similar: razor strop

  2. A piece of rope spliced into a circular wreath, and put round a block for hanging it.

verb strops · stropping · stropped

  1. To hone (a razor or knife) with a strop. One should strop the razor before each shave.
  2. obsolete To strap.

strop²

  • /stɹɒp/ UK
  • /stɹɑp/ US

Rhymes with -ɒp

Where it comes from

Back-formation from stroppy.

noun strops

  1. Commonwealth, Ireland, UK A bad mood or temper. A tantrum.

    Similar: huff

strop³

  • /stɹɒp/ UK
  • /stɹɑp/ US

Rhymes with -ɒp

Where it comes from

From apostrophe, due to use of apostrophes as single quotation marks to indicate boldface in ALGOL 60. Other methods were used, especially in ALGOL 68, where the earlier matched apostrophes were no longer common, and the term became used more generally for any such method.

verb strops · stropping · stropped

  1. To mark a sequence of letters syntactically as having a special property, such as being a keyword, e.g. by enclosing in apostrophes as in 'foo' or writing in uppercase as in FOO.

strop⁴

  • /stɹɒp/ UK
  • /stɹɑp/ US

Rhymes with -ɒp

noun strops

  1. slang A poor-quality or unsaleable diamond. […] he almost fell out of the phone booth laughing and said to her, 'Boy, did my son buy a strop! Did he get stuck!'

Translations

Every language

noun strap

Françaislanière
DeutschRiemen
Italianocoramella, affilarasoio

noun rope

Françaisestrope

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Cite this
MLA

"strop." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/strop. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

strop. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/strop

Chicago

"strop." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/strop.

BibTeX
@misc{strop_2026,
  title = {strop},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/strop},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}