One of a pair of thin sticks used as eating utensils, especially in East Asian cuisines like Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese.
From English 'chop' (fast/quick) combined with 'stick.' The 'chop' part may come from Pidgin English or Chinese 'kuài' (quick), though the exact origin is debated. The term was invented by English speakers, not East Asians.
Chopsticks are thousands of years old and originated in China around 400 BCE, but the word 'chopstick' is actually a recent English invention! East Asians never called them that—it's a 'pidgin' word created when English traders needed a quick way to describe these utensils.
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