strop

Etymology 1

Same as strap (which see); recorded in English since 1702. The verb sense referring to honing a sharp edge is recorded since 1842.

noun

1. A strap; more specifically a piece of leather or a substitute (notably canvas), or strip of wood covered with a suitable material, for honing a razor, in this sense also called razor strop.
2. (nautical) A piece of rope spliced into a circular wreath, and put round a block for hanging it.

verb

1. To hone (a razor or knife) with a strop.
   Coordinate term: lap (verb)
   One should strop the razor before each shave.
   The barber—a round, bustling fellow—stropped his razor and prattled gossip. 1891, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 1, in The Blue Pavilions
2. (obsolete) To strap.

Etymology 2

Back-formation from stroppy

noun

1. (Britain) A bad mood or temper.

Etymology 3

From apostrophe, due to use of apostrophes as single quotation marks to indicate boldface in ALGOL 60. Other methods were used, especially in ALGOL 68, where the earlier matched apostrophes were no longer common, and the term became used more generally for any such method.

verb

1. (computing) To mark a sequence of letters syntactically as having a special property, such as being a keyword, e.g. by enclosing in apostrophes as in 'foo' or writing in uppercase as in FOO.

Etymology 4

noun

1. (slang) A poor-quality or unsaleable diamond.
   […] he almost fell out of the phone booth laughing and said to her, 'Boy, did my son buy a strop! Did he get stuck!' 2005, Renée Rose Shield, Diamond Stories: Enduring Change on 47th Street, page 156