I. ˈsüp noun
( -s )
Etymology: French soupe, from Old French, of Germanic origin; akin to Old Norse soppa soup — more at sop
1. often attributive : a liquid food having as a base a meat, fish, or vegetable stock, being clear or thickened to the consistency of a thin puree or having milk or cream added, and often containing pieces of solid food (as meat, shellfish, pasta, or vegetables)
2. : something having the consistency of soup: as
a. : a plastic mixture of solid material with liquid
could not culture it in … any of the soups used to grow bacteria — G.W.Gray b.1886
manufacture … bookpaper from a soup of shredded woodpulp — Saturday Review
specifically : a very wet concrete or mortar mix
b. : thick wet clouds or fog
talk airplanes down through the soup by … radar — Boeing Magazine
c. : nitroglycerin especially as used by safecrackers
drove to the powder house … to get some soup for a safecracking job — New York Times
d. : photographic developer
while the prints were in the soup — Florence Haas
e. : a thin solution of pyroxylin containing pigments used in coating fabrics (as for artificial leather)
3. : an unfortunate predicament : hot water — used in the phrase in the soup
caught him red-handed and now he's in the soup
•
- from soup to nuts
II. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: from earlier soup substance injected into a racehorse to speed it up, from soup (I)
: to increase the power or efficiency of
souping the stock engine — Hot Rod Magazine
— usually used with up
engineers had souped up the planes and some could climb as high as 20,000 feet — All Hands
boys … buy old cars and soup them up — Gregor Felsen
suspended mikes — souped up to pick up a wider range of sounds — Newsweek
III. noun
( -s )
1. slang : horsepower
2. slang : added power of any kind
using a rifle powder in a pistol cartridge can give a load with too much soup
IV. noun
: the fast-moving white water that moves shoreward after a wave breaks