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chopstick.

An East Asian eating utensil typically used as a pair held in one hand to grip food items, mix liquids, or scoop food out of a bowl. The utensil is a stick, usually made of wood, and measuring approximately 23 cm (10 inches) in length.

9 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈt͡ʃɒp.stɪk/UK/ˈt͡ʃɑp.stɪk/US
  1. An East Asian eating utensil typically used as a pair held in one hand to grip food items, mix liquids, or scoop food out of a bowl. The utensil is a stick, usually made of wood, and measuring approximately 23 cm (10 inches) in length.

    plural-normally
  2. An Asian person.

    ethnic · slur
  3. A long straight stick used to keep baited hooks separated in deep-sea fishing tackle.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Apparently a compound of chop + stick, but the sense of the first element is not clear. The term was earliest applied to fishing tackle (from 1615), later being transferred to the dining utensil (attested since 1637) driven by their visual resemblance. The commonly held derivation from Chinese Pidgin English chop(-chop) (“quick”), a supposed calque from Chinese 筷子 (kuàizi, “chopstick, literally, ‘little quick ones’”), derived from 快 (kuài, “quick”), is chronologically impossible as Chinese Pidgin English did not come into existence until the 18th century.

verb/ˈt͡ʃɒp.stɪk/UK/ˈt͡ʃɑp.stɪk/US
  1. To pick up (food), or eat, using chopsticks, or as with chopsticks.

    ambitransitive · informal
  2. To fish using a tackle with a chopstick.

    obsolete · rare
Where this word comes from

Apparently a compound of chop + stick, but the sense of the first element is not clear. The term was earliest applied to fishing tackle (from 1615), later being transferred to the dining utensil (attested since 1637) driven by their visual resemblance. The commonly held derivation from Chinese Pidgin English chop(-chop) (“quick”), a supposed calque from Chinese 筷子 (kuàizi, “chopstick, literally, ‘little quick ones’”), derived from 快 (kuài, “quick”), is chronologically impossible as Chinese Pidgin English did not come into existence until the 18th century.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.