A circular horizontal surface of indefinite diameter gave a drop of water weighing 2·10 grains. This is therefore the weight of the maximum drop formed on a flat surface, and it will be seen that it very nearly coincides with the weight of the drop formed upon a surface seven-tenths of an inch diameter. The drop in this case is always formed at the centre of the surface, this being the centre of the greatest molecular attraction amongst the liquid particles.
1986, Eugene Tinory, Journey from Ammeah: The Story of a Lebanese Immigrant, Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, →ISBN, page 96:
My first treatment consisted of one eye drop in each eye which was supposed to determine the condition of the eye and make it easier to examine them the next day.
2009, Mark A[llan] Goldstein, Myrna Chandler Goldstein, Larry P. Credit, “Glaucoma [Tipes for Using Eye Drops]”, in Your Best Medicine: From Conventional and Complementary Medicine—Expert-endorsed Therapeutic Solutions to Relieve Symptoms and Speed Healing, New York, N.Y.: Rodale Books, →ISBN, part 2 (The Best Medicine for 81 Common Health Concerns), page 234, column 1:
The eye is able to hold only about 20 percent of the amount of fluid in a standard eye drop. Therefore, put only one eye drop in your eye at a time. If you have been instructed to use more than one eye drop, wait about 5 minutes between the drops. This will allow more of the drops to be absorbed and will reduce waste.
(figuratively) A very small quantity of liquid, or (by extension) of anything.
My aunt asked for just a drop more tea.
He was thirsty but there wasn’t a drop of water to be found
They didn’t show a drop of remorse
1994, Yvonne Howell, “Introduction”, in Apocalyptic Realism: The Science Fiction of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Russian and East European Studies in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Culture; 1), New York, N.Y.: Peter Lang, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 1:
BAZARIN: Zoya Sergeevna, just a drop more tea, if you would. / ZOYA SERGEEVNA: (pouring tea) Do you want it strong?
Finally she landed the role, and glory be to God, her best friend Melanie landed the role of Anne's best friend. Not one drop of help did she get from her showbiz parents, who were far too preoccupied with the shape of twenty-four table centre-pieces, […]
He usually enjoys a drop after dinner. She won’t touch a drop while she’s on duty.
(chiefly British)Usually preceded bythe: alcoholic spirits in general.
It doesn’t matter where you’re from, anyone who enjoys the drop is a friend of mine.
1834, Peregrine Reedpen [pseudonym], “The Survey Continued. Odds and Ends.”, in Our Town; or, Rough Sketches of Character, Manners, &c.[…], volume I, London: Richard Bentley,[…], →OCLC, page 61:
She is rather fond of her drops, and is then particularly good-humoured; it is only when she is getting sober that she is querulous and nervous.
1986 June, “Information Obtained in the Investigation”, in Apple Juice: Report to the President on Investigation No. TA-201-59 under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (USITC Publication; 1861), Washington, D.C.: United States International Trade Commission, →OCLC, page A-2:
Drops are another source of juice apple supply. As the pickers pick apples in orchards oriented toward fresh-market or canning apples, apples fall or are accidentally knocked to the ground; these are drops. The only use for drops is juice production.
1993, United States Commission on Agricultural Workers, “The Apple Industry in New York and Pennsylvania”, in Case Studies and Research Reports Prepared for the Commission on Agricultural Workers 1989–1993 to Accompany the Report of the Commission: Appendix I, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 387, column 1:
Drops are fruit that has fallen to the ground naturally or that is dropped or knocked off during harvest. Drops have no value except for pressing for juice. While the value of drops is usually minimal, they must be removed from the orchards; otherwise, they attract mice which later in the season, once the apples are gone, gnaw on the roots of apple trees.
2002, Ken Haedrich, “Very Apple Apple Pies”, in Apple Pie: 100 Delicious and Decidedly Different Recipes for America’s Favorite Pie, Boston, Mass.: The Harvard Common Press, →ISBN, page 97, column 1:
But in the fall, when apples are abundant and cheap, I like to make my own [applesauce]. I'll often buy a few bags of "drops" just for this purpose. Drops are apples that have fallen from the trees instead of being picked. They're less expensive since they might have a bruise or two, but otherwise they're fresh nd juicy.
2005 October, Michael Phillips, “Growing Apples Locally”, in The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist, revised edition, White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 3:
Biologically based IPM goes further by integrating orchard practices for common gain. Thus, in a second-level IPM orchard, sprays are withheld after June to allow beneficial insect populations to rebuild; summer maggot fly incursions are trapped at the border; drops are removed to limit in-orchard pest pupation; and fall sanitation is used to reduce disease inoculum the following spring.
2009, Ben Watson, Cider, Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions, and Making Your Own, 2nd edition, Woodstock, Vt.: The Countryman Press, →ISBN, page 54, column 1:
Drops are often considered the same as windfalls, and some people insist that any fruit that has fallen to the ground—no matter for how short a time—should not be used for making cider. […]Drops, on the other hand [unlike windfalls], are fruits that have sat around on the ground for a longer period of time—typically a day or more.
As the prisoners prepared to leave, they had seen Dan and Steve standing together in the breezeway, ‘for all the world like two condemned prisoners on the drop’.
1983, Theatre Crafts, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Crafts Associates, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 61, column 1:
La Cage's upstage drops include two of the St. Tropez harbor (one for the day and another for the night), [... an] ocean drop (used in an Act I dream sequence), and an abstract chandelier drop (used in the second act[…]).
In The Rover, one of these esthetically important elements was the arrangement of the upstage drops. Originally the drop was split into three sections, with obvious and blatant seams between them.
The slope of the terrain, shaped like a funnel, squeezed the growing swell of churning snow into a steep, twisting gorge. It moved in surges, like a roller coaster on a series of drops and high-banked turns.
The delivery driver has to make three more drops before lunch.
The spy made the drop, leaving the plans under the tree as arranged.
2020, Arlana Crane, Mordecai's Ashes:
That was how a drug deal went down? […] Karl shook his head and pulled away from the curb, heading for his next drop and feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the mass of cash now keeping the drugs in his bags company.
1996, Steve Bourie, Anthony Curtis [et al.], American Casino Guide, Dania, Fla.: Casino Vacations, published 1997, →ISBN, page 12:
What the first column in the table shows you is how much the casinos won as a percentage of the drop. For example, on the roulette table for every $100 that went into the drop box the casino wonj $22.70 or 22.70%. […] In other words, the drop tells you how many chips were bought at that table, but it doesn't tell you how many bets were made with those chips.
[A]ll those present shared the all-important political connections required to get a ticket to the execution. News reporters, doctors, and members of the juries had prime spots right by the platform, so that they could see the drop and record the time of death.
[T]he volume of money was expected to fluctuate with the volume of business activity so that a drop in business activity would bring a drop in the volume of money outstanding. […] If the volume of money is reduced, it tends to produce a slight drop in demand for all sorts of commodities.
An Ananda truck coming down a steep, winding mountain road completely lost its brakes and crashed through a thin guard rail over an almost sheer 1000 foot drop. It was caught and held by a solitary tree that was growing in the one and only spot where it could prevent a certain fatal plunge. No one was even slightly injured.
1869, Richard W. Meade, A Treatise on Naval Architecture and Shipbuilding, page 117:
A further point is, that the convenience of the ship herself may interfere with the disposition of sails. A high forecastle will shorten the drop of the foresail, and a poop may seriously interfere with the spanker.
1969, Richard Armstrong, The Merchantmen, page 97:
Her mainyard was 80 feet long, and her mainsail had a drop of 40 feet.
2020, John McKay, Sovereign of the Seas, 1637:
Because this natural bulging was not adequate, the sails were deliberately made to round outward by cutting the cloths longer than necessary for the drop of the sail.
1973, United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Small Business, Criminal Redistribution Systems and Their Economic Impact on Small Business: Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, page 811:
A drop is a place where the stolen property can be stored. It may be a warehouse, an apartment, or a garage. At the drop, a group of persons called loaders remove the merchandise from the truck and store it.
But musical ancestry aside, the influence to which [Justin] Bieber is most beholden is the current trends in pop music, which means Believe is loaded up with EDM [electronic dance music] accouterments, seeking a comfortable middle ground where Bieber’s impressively refined pop-R&B croon can rub up on techno blasts and garish dubstep drops (and occasionally grind on some AutoTune, not necessarily because it needs it, but because a certain amount of robo-voice is expected these days).
2015, Robin James, Resilience & Melancholy[5], Zero Books, →ISBN:
Just as dubstep has grown in popularity and combined with many different genres, the drop has become a generalized type of which there are many individually varying instances, including dubstep bass-drop. As LA Times critic Randall Roberts notes, even good-girl tween pop idol Taylor Swift uses a drop in her Max-Martin-Produced track “I Knew You Were Trouble.”
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
1722 September 12, Robert Digby, “[Letters to and from the Hon. Robert Digby. From 1717 to 1724.] Letter X [to Alexander Pope].”, in The Works of Alexander Pope Esq., volume VIII (Being the Second of His Letters), London: […] J. and P. Knapton[…], published 1751, →OCLC, page 43:
Nothing, ſays Seneca, is ſo melancholy a circumſtance in human life, or ſo ſoon reconciles us to the thought of our own death, as the reflection and prospect of one friend after another dropping round us!
This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.
The 18-year-old [Justin] Bieber can’t quite pull off the “adult” thing just yet: His voice may have dropped a bit since the days of “Baby,” but it still mostly registers as “angelic,” and veers toward a pubescent whine at times.
He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.
Don’t drop that plate! The police ordered the men to drop their weapons.
2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43:
But signalman Bridges was never to answer driver Gimbert's desperate question. A deafening, massive blast blew the wagon to shreds, the 44 high-explosive bombs exploding like simultaneous hits from the aircraft they should have been dropped from. The station was instantly reduced to bits of debris, and the line to a huge crater.
2011, Alexander Mamishev, Sean Williams, Technical Writing for Teams: The STREAM Tools Handbook, page 64:
Here is a simple example: suppose you are in the process of writing a 15-page proposal and at a certain point you decide that, in order to fit all your material, you want to drop the font size from 12 to 11.
If Carly Telford’s replacement of Karen Bardsley, because of a hamstring injury, was enforced, the switch to 4-4-1-1 was not. This new-look configuration saw Rachel Daly deployed in front of Lucy Bronze down the right, Toni Duggan and Fran Kirby dropped, Beth Mead introduced on the left and Nikita Parris moved up front.
I had to drop calculus because it was taking up too much of my time.
2022 October 13, Lisa Sanders, M.D., “She Suffered From Headaches and Fatigue. Were Concussions to Blame?”, in The New York Times Magazine[9]:
The specialists she had taken her daughter to see attributed her collection of symptoms to the lingering effect of the many concussions she suffered playing sports. She had at least one concussion every year since she was in the fourth grade. Because of her frequent head injuries, her parents made her drop all her sports.
1949, The Atlantian, volume 8, Atlanta: United States Penitentiary, page 41:
The question was: Who put the most in the collection box? The wealthy guy, who dropped a “C” note, or the tattered old dame who parted with her last tarnished penny.
2000, Lisa Reardon, Blameless: A Novel, Random House, page 221:
I forked over the $19.25. I was in no position to be dropping twenties like gumdrops but I deserved something good from this crappy morning.
1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost.[…], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter[…]; [a]nd Matthias Walker,[…], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…], 1873, →OCLC:
Cherokee: ᎤᏬᎰᏎᎭ(uwohoseha)(a solid object), ᎠᏙᎥᏅᏗᎭ(adovnvdiha)(a living creature or a flexible object), ᎠᏐᎣᏅᏗᎭ(asoonvdiha)(a long object), ᎪᎲᎾᏗᎭ(gohvnadiha)(something liquid)
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
^ Rejzek, Jiří (2015) “drop”, in Český etymologický slovník [Czech Etymological Dictionary] (in Czech), 3rd (revised and expanded) edition, Praha: LEDA, →ISBN, pages 157–158
^ Rejzek, Jiří (2015) “pták”, in Český etymologický slovník [Czech Etymological Dictionary] (in Czech), 3rd (revised and expanded) edition, Praha: LEDA, →ISBN, page 569
^ Rejzek, Jiří (2015) “drop”, in Český etymologický slovník [Czech Etymological Dictionary] (in Czech), 3rd (revised and expanded) edition, Praha: LEDA, →ISBN, pages 157–158
^ Rejzek, Jiří (2015) “pták”, in Český etymologický slovník [Czech Etymological Dictionary] (in Czech), 3rd (revised and expanded) edition, Praha: LEDA, →ISBN, page 569