chop and change

verb

To change or exchange repeatedly.

“For quotations using this term, see Citations:chop and change.”

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Meanings

verbchop and change (third-person singular simple present chops and changes, present participle chopping and changing, simple past and past participle chopped and changed)

present singular third person chops and changes · participle present chopping and changing · participle past chopped and changed · past chopped and changed

  1. To change or exchange repeatedly.

    She pauses. “We were all very young. It was all chop and change. Quite a lot of things were experimental, I suppose. How to live a life! I don’t know whether I’ve got it now, but never mind – I had it!”

    2021 March 27, Simon Hattenstone, quoting Charlotte Rampling, “Charlotte Rampling: ‘I am prickly. People who are prickly can’t be hurt any more’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    1 more example

    [...] and a good many people at B.T.C. headquarters and at Euston are still smarting from the Select Committee strictures on the L.M.R. Western Lines electrification estimates, whilst the nation at large is suffering from the effects of chopping and changing the electrification schemes.

    1962 September, “Talking of Trains: Money for (road) jam”, in Modern Railways, page 153
  2. To rearrange, reconfigure, or customise.

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:chop and change.

Cite this entry
APA

chop and change. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chop%20and%20change

MLA

“chop and change.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chop%20and%20change. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chop and change,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chop%20and%20change.

Source: chop and change on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.