Meaning & use

Chips

noun·Everyday

Last updated

Small, thin pieces cut, broken, or fried from a larger item — commonly thin slices of fried potato (British English: French fries) or, in American English, thin crispy snack slices.

See it in a sentence

In Britain, chips are usually thicker-cut than American French fries and served with vinegar.

Modern smartphones rely on tiny silicon chips capable of billions of calculations per second.

A note on using this word

The word illustrates a classic transatlantic split: British 'chips' are American 'fries,' while American 'chips' (thin and crispy) are called 'crisps' in Britain.

Words with a similar meaning

friescrispswafers

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Another way to use it

2. noun

Small electronic devices, or integrated circuits, that process or store information.

The new laptop uses a faster processing chip than its predecessor.

3. noun

Small discs used to represent money in gambling games.

He cashed in his poker chips at the end of the night.

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