sopyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[sop 词源字典]
sop: [OE] The word sop originally denoted a ‘piece of bread, cake, etc dipped into water, milk, wine, or similar liquid’. The modern metaphorical meaning ‘something given to gain favour, bribe’ did not emerge until the mid-17th century, in allusion to the piece of bread soaked in enticing honey but spiked with a soporific drug that was given to the guard dog Cerberus to put him to sleep so that Aeneas could visit the Underworld.

The word goes back ultimately to the same prehistoric Germanic base (*sup-) that produced English sip and sup ‘drink’, and also, via the Romance languages, soup and supper. The corresponding verb sop ‘dip in liquid’ now survives only in the present participial form sopping ‘soaking wet’ [19].
=> sip, soup, sup, supper[sop etymology, sop origin, 英语词源]
sop (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English sopp- "bread soaked in some liquid," (in soppcuppe "cup into which sops are put"), from Proto-Germanic *supp-, related to Old English verb suppan (see sup (v.2)), probably reinforced by Old French soupe (see soup (n.)). Meaning "something given to appease" is from 1660s, a reference to the sops given by the Sibyl to Cerberus in the "Aeneid."
sop (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English soppian, from the source of sop (n.). Related: Sopped; sopping.