potato chip
48
1.0
- noun
- /pəˈteɪtoʊ tʃɪp/
- US
:
patata frita (ES)
- My favorite snack is a bag of potato chips with a crisp texture and salty flavor.
- bag of potato chips
I haven't had any potato chips, any French fries.
- I haven't had any potato chips, any French fries.
- We're really good with telling people you shouldn't eat potato chips, you shouldn't eat fast food.
- This smells incredible and not like vinegar potato chips.
- Did you bring me these potato chips, Mike?
- So I want you to picture you and I have a bag of potato chips and then we have a plate of boiled potatoes.
- But making printing CIG solar cells and making potato chip bags are two very different things.
Examples
-
On the table are bowls of potato chips, dip, and sandwiches.
Fiction book (1995) -
"At Doreen's, I had a burger, potato chips, and a milkshake."
Fiction book (2000) -
When she came back up, she held out a bag of potato chips.
Fiction book (1993) -
Yeah, people love working at the potato chip factory.
-
I got a job working at a potato chip factory and stayed there about a year.
-
We were drinking some good sweet and cold Kool-Aid and eating salt-and-vinegar potato chips.
Fiction book (2000) -
Narrator: Nicole Bali sits in her living room eating potato chips and watching television.
Fiction book (1998) -
At the party, everyone enjoyed a large bowl of potato chips with dip.
-
I always bring a pack of potato chips for road trips because they're easy to eat.
Synonyms
218
1.0
A thin crisp slice of potato fried and eaten as a snack
27
1.2
A thin fried slice of potato eaten cold as a snack
A thin, crisp slice of potato fried in hot oil
Fried potato chips coated with curry powder and served hot as a snack
How Crunchy
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: a 'potato chip' is literally a chip made from a potato, and both constituent meanings (potato; chip = thin crisp slice) combine transparently to yield the compound meaning. This noun+noun compound follows a common cross-linguistic pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the parts will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Potato chip may come from a story about a cook who sliced potatoes very thin and fried them until they were crisp. The word chip means a small 'piece', so the name pictures a tiny fried 'slice' of potato, which is why potato chip now means a thin, crunchy 'snack'.