Literary notes about sop (AI summary)
The term "sop" in literature is often employed with a dual significance—both as a literal reference to something soaked and as a metaphor for a feeble or overly indulgent consolation. In certain narratives, authors use it to describe a substance that absorbs liquid, evoking an image of a saturated piece of bread or similar texture, as in a vivid account where an object is reduced to a "homogeneous sop" [1] or sweetened with honey to charm a guard [2]. In other passages, "sop" carries a figurative tone, suggesting a paltry or unsatisfactory token of comfort or appeasement, illustrated when it is labeled as an “old sop of comfort” [3] or as an item intended to placate, like a token offered to a jeweller [4]. This multiplicity of meanings enriches the language, allowing the word to simultaneously evoke tangible imagery and abstract notions of weakness or consolation.
- Ultimately he was reduced well-nigh to a homogeneous sop, and the dyes of his clothes trickled down and stood in a pool at the foot of the ladder.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - A sop, in honey steep’d, to charm the guard; Which, mix’d with pow’rful drugs, she cast before
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - " "That old sop of comfort has been served up too often already when reverses came," retorted Gertrude.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery - It was the sum she had set aside to pacify her dress-maker—unless she should decide to use it as a sop to the jeweller.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
