props
props Lexical Profile
props Game Scores & Validity
• noun
Due credit, recognition, or respect given to someone for an achievement or admirable quality (informal).
"You have to give her props for organizing the entire charity conference on such short notice."
Portable objects, other than furniture or costumes, used by actors on a stage or film set during a performance.
"The stage crew carefully arranged all the props on the table before the curtain rose."
Poles, beams, or other rigid supports used to keep something upright or prevent it from falling.
"Wooden props were wedged beneath the sagging orchard branches to keep them from snapping under the weight of the fruit."
• verb
To support or keep something in position by placing a rigid object beneath or against it (third-person singular simple present of prop).
"He props his bicycle against the garden wall every evening when he returns from work."
Word Nuance & Usage
In its slang sense meaning 'due credit or respect' (a clipping of 'propers'), 'props' is an uncountable plural tantum noun and is never used in the singular.
• Rhymes for props
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
The slang sense meaning 'due respect' originated in 1980s African American Vernacular English and hip-hop culture as a clipping of 'propers' (from 'proper respect'). The theatrical sense is a 19th-century shortening of 'properties'.