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soup (sp)
Share:
n.
1. A liquid food prepared from meat, fish, or vegetable stock combined with various other ingredients and often containing solid pieces.
2. Slang Something having the appearance or a consistency suggestive of soup, especially:
a. Dense fog.
b. Nitroglycerine.
3. Primordial soup.
4. A chaotic or unfortunate situation.
Phrasal Verb:
soup up Slang
To modify (something) so as to increase its capacity to perform or satisfy, especially to add horsepower or greater speed potential to (an engine or a vehicle).
Idiom:
in the soup Slang
Having difficulties; in trouble.
[Middle English soupe, from Old French, of Germanic origin; see seuə-2 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots. Soup up, from SOUP, material injected into a horse to make it run faster (influenced by SUPERCHARGE).]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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