Slop is watery, unappetizing food or any messy liquid mixture. When cafeteria food looks like a gray, soupy mess, kids might complain about being served slop. The word suggests something that's too liquid, poorly mixed, or generally unpleasant to look at or eat.

Farmers use slop to mean leftover food scraps mixed with water that are fed to pigs. Historically, kitchen waste, vegetable peelings, and other scraps would be collected in a bucket and mixed together as pig feed, creating a sloppy, wet mixture that pigs actually enjoy eating.

The word also means to spill or splash messily. If you're carrying a full bucket of water and it slops over the sides with each step, you're leaving a wet trail behind you. Someone might slop paint onto a canvas carelessly, or slop soup into a bowl without paying attention.

When someone does something carelessly or hastily, we might say they did a sloppy job. A sloppy essay has mistakes and poor organization. A sloppy room has clothes and books scattered everywhere. This meaning connects back to the messy, careless quality of liquid slopping around.