chop shop

noun

: a place where stolen automobiles are stripped of salable parts

Examples of chop shop in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web During the 1980s and 1990s, a number of perfectly beautiful Daytona berlinettas were butchered by Sawzall-wielding chop shops to create close replicas of the original spiders. Robert Ross, Robb Report, 12 Feb. 2024 Seth finds success there but also realizes that his firm is a chop shop that essentially scams investors. Lillian Brown, Vulture, 3 Oct. 2023 For money, Georgie and Ali steal bicycles and sell them to some kind of bike chop shop. Odie Henderson, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Sep. 2023 Mike Tyson is playing an arms-dealing, chop shop–owning gangster. Nick Romano, EW.com, 5 May 2022 Dunkins pleaded guilty to the three counts in exchange for having two third-degree burglary charges and an additional operating chop shop charge dropped. Perry Vandell, The Arizona Republic, 2 Mar. 2022 Anyone with information about the chop shop is asked to contact the department. Hojun Choi, Dallas News, 5 Aug. 2021 An investigation involving the Detroit Police Commercial Auto Section led to a chop shop in the 13900 block of Penrod Street. Tyler J. Davis, Detroit Free Press, 8 Oct. 2020 They were found scattered throughout the capital city, along with a Toyota Camry and Honda CRV stolen in Hartford, and detectives believe are individual cases of theft and not tied to a particular chop shop. Zach Murdock, courant.com, 25 Sep. 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'chop shop.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1977, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of chop shop was in 1977

Dictionary Entries Near chop shop

Cite this Entry

“Chop shop.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chop%20shop. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

chop shop

noun
: a place where stolen automobiles are stripped for salable parts

Legal Definition

chop-shop

noun
ˈchäp-ˌshäp
: a place where stolen automobiles are stripped of salable parts

More from Merriam-Webster on chop shop

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