lollop

Imitative. Compare loll.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɒləp/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒləp
• Hyphenation: lol‧lop

lollop (third-person singular simple present lollops, present participle lolloping, simple past and past participle lolloped)

1. To walk or move with a bouncing or undulating motion and at an unhurried pace.
   • 1861, “Chinese Slaves Adrift”, in All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, volume 5, page 251:

     Every available spyglass was directed towards this strange sail. It appeared, as we all watched it, to lollop up and down, as it were, with the jerk of the sea, according to no regular motion of a ship or boat.

   • 1902, Rudyard Kipling, “How the Camel Got His Hump”, in Just So Stories: For Little Children, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC:

     And the Camel said ‘Humph!’ again; but no sooner had he said it than he saw his back, that he was so proud of, puffing up and puffing up into a great big lolloping humph.

   • 1920 August 27, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Wind Blows”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 137:

     The carts rattle by, swinging from side to side; two Chinamen lollop along under their wooden yokes with the straining vegetable baskets—their pigtails and blue blouses fly out in the wind.

   • 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:

     With a timid, loutish movement the great beast turned aside, then lumbered off followed by the calf. The other buffalo also extricated itself from the slime and lolloped away.

   • 1934, Henry Handel Richardson, The End of a Childhood‎, section III:

     And first they saw the red through the trees, and then the whole coach. And no wonder it was so long coming, the horses were only just lolloping along; because it wasn't the coach that carried the mails.

   • 2013 May 8, “Chelsea, Spurs in thrilling draw”, in Sport24:

     Collecting the ball midway inside his own half, the lolloping Togolese striker exploited generosity in the home defence by ambling downfield and then shaped a sumptuous shot into the top-right corner from 25 yards.

   • 2016 October 31, Neil McKim, “80 Years of TV theme tunes”, in BBC Music Magazine:

     After a flamboyant snare drum roll intro, the catchy plinky-plonky piano melody is joined by lolloping xylophone and flutes.

2. (obsolete) To act lazily, loll, lie around.
   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, chapter 34, in The Adventures of Roderick Random‎:

     “Here’s fine discipline on-board, when such lazy, skulking sons of bitches as you are allowed, on pretence of sickness, to lollop at your ease, while your betters are kept to hard duty!”

   • 1782, [Frances Burney], chapter 12, in Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: […] T[homas] Payne and Son […], and T[homas] Cadell […], →OCLC, book, page 146:

     Mr. Meadows, who was seated in the middle of the box, was lolloping upon the table with his customary ease, and picking his teeth with his usual inattention to all about him.

   • 1827, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 11, in The Prairie‎:

     “Your uncle is, and always will be, a dull calculator, Nell,” observed the mother, after a long pause in a conversation that had turned on the labours of the day; “a lazy hand at figures and foreknowledge is that said Ishmael Bush! Here he sat lolloping about the rock from light till noon, doing nothing but scheme—scheme—scheme— […] ”