🧔 Long sideburns 🍖 A meat dish

mutton chops

1 3.9

Pieces of sheep meat, usually from the ribs, cooked and served as a meal

noun

: chuletas de cordero

I ordered mutton chops for dinner.

Examples

At the family gathering, everyone enjoyed the delicious mutton chops prepared by Grandma.
He ordered grilled mutton chops and a side of fresh vegetables for dinner.
The restaurant is famous for its tender mutton chops served with rosemary potatoes.
The restaurant is famous for its mutton chops.
For dinner, we enjoyed thick mutton chops grilled to perfection with a side of vegetables.
The restaurant is famous for its delicious mutton chops, which are always tender and flavorful.
On the menu, there is a special featuring mutton chops served with a rich gravy.

Synonyms

chop

vsmutton chops

288 1.8

A thick piece of meat with a bone from the rib or loin

is specifically pieces from mature sheep not any animal

mutton

vsmutton chops

20 2.8

Meat from an adult sheep that people eat

is about specific rib or loin pieces cooked and served as a dish

cut of mutton

vsmutton chops

6.8

A piece of meat from an adult sheep that people cook and eat

is specific to rib or loin pieces served as a dish

Surface Forms

mutton chops plural

mutton chop singular

Morphology

mutton + chop

The phrase relies on a visual metaphor: sideburns that look like a cut of mutton (mutton + chops), so there is a clear link between the constituents and the intended image. However, the leap from ‘meat cut’ to ‘facial hair’ is culturally specific and not fully predictable for an average B1 learner who knows only the literal words, making the expression partially but not fully transparent.

Etymology

Mutton chops comes from the food: mutton means sheep meat and chops are the rib or loin cuts that look like small steaks, so the cooked pieces were called 'mutton chops'.