opp

Opp is short for opposition or opponent, and it means an enemy. Almost always plural: the opps. In its original setting it named real rivals, the other side in a street conflict. Merriam-Webster notes it first described people you might be in mortal combat with.

Most people who say it now mean nothing so heavy. The word has stretched into a joke. A teacher who set homework over the break is an opp. So is a sibling who took your leftovers, or a coworker who took the last parking spot. Calling someone an opp over something tiny is funny precisely because the word comes from somewhere serious.

Do not confuse it with O.P.P., the 1991 Naughty by Nature hit. Those letters stood for a vulgar phrase about other people's partners, and "down with O.P.P." was an early-90s catchphrase. That is a different, older use. The modern word is a clipping, not an acronym, and it has nothing to do with the song.

The exact first use is unclear, but the setting is documented. Opp came out of Chicago's drill rap scene in the early 2010s, where it named rival gang members. It is a clipping of opposition. The earliest known recorded use is a 2011 Chief Keef track, "John Madden," and other Chicago drill artists followed in 2012 and 2013. Chief Keef did not coin it. Spoken use in Chicago almost certainly came first, but no record of that exists.

The word belongs to African American Vernacular English, specifically Black Chicago's drill scene, and reference works say so. It stayed fairly niche until about 2016, then spread with drill's popularity and through artists with national reach. By 2018 it was established in UK drill too, which grew out of Chicago drill. The lexicographer Tony Thorne's 2018 UK drill glossary lists "opps, enemies."

TikTok did not start it. TikTok made it mainstream, and turned it into the joke it mostly is today.