Chips

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /t͡ʃɪps/

Definitions

1. Thin, crispy slices of potatoes often eaten as a snack ; tiny pieces of silicon used in electronic devices ; fragments broken off from a larger solid object
2. Fried potato slices that are crunchy and typically salted ; miniature electronic components made from semiconductors ; small broken parts produced when an object is damaged
3. Snack food made by frying sliced potatoes until crisp ; minute semiconductor blocks used in circuits ; chips resulting from accidental breaks or damage to an item

Etymology: The fried-potato sense of "chips" is a British development that sits oddly with its origins, since the word began as something cut from wood. Its ancestor in Old English, "ċipp," meant a small piece of wood or a shaving, and it grew from a verb meaning to cut, hew or chop. The same family of words gave English "chip" as a splinter or flake, and the idea of a thin piece knocked off a larger body stayed constant as the word spread. Potatoes were the most ordinary thing to cut into thin pieces, so the chip-shaped slice came to be the name for a fried potato in Britain. Americans use "fries" for the same food and reserve "chips" for crisps, which is a neat reversal given that both sides are describing the same thin, flat, fried slice.

Synonyms: crisps, snacks, fries, pieces, shavings