Entry · catalog no. 4138
chopped
/ /tʃɑpt/ /CHOPT
adjective · northeast · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
Cut from a category by the judges — sent home. Out of ballroom it broadened to mean busted, ugly, or plainly not it.
“That walk was chopped — the panel didn't even blink.”
Origin & Attribution
From the Black and Latino ballroom scene of New York, where to be chopped is to lose a category — the judges' hard "X." The reading culture of the ballroom made the word sting. It traveled out through drag television, where getting "the chop" means going home, and into wider slang for anything or anyone judged not up to par.
1980s
Ballroom judging term for elimination
1990
Ballroom reading culture captured in 'Paris Is Burning'
2010s
Drag television spreads 'the chop' to a mass audience
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
northeast · 1980s
Spoken by
Black & Latino ballroom community, drag
$CHOPPEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising41 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1985
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Paris Is Burning — documentary film · 1990
researched
■
+ Cite a sourceThe Gay & Lesbian Review — "The Language of Ballroom" — article
researched
See also