popple

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English

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English popul, popil, from Old English popul, from Latin populus.

Noun

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popple (plural popples)

  1. (dialect) poplar
    • 1911, Highways and byways of the Great Lakes, The Macmillan company, page 264:
      Some of them had recently built a pulp mill, and he called my attention to the young growths of "popple" we could see from the car window and remarked: "There's good pulp material in those trees, but it's not easy to get 'em cut. You'll strike lots of Catholic lumber-jacks who won't have anything to do with cutting a popple tree, and they won't cross a bridge or sleep in a house that has popple wood in it. There's a tradition that the cross on which Christ was crucified was of popple, and they say the wood was cursed on that account.

Etymology 2

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From Middle English poplen, possibly from Middle Dutch, of imitative origin.

Noun

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popple (plural popples)

  1. Choppy water; the motion or sound of agitated water (as from boiling or wind).
    • 1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 17, in Well Tackled![1]:
      Commander Birch was a trifle uneasy when he found there was more than a popple on the sea; it was, in fact, distinctly choppy.

Verb

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popple (third-person singular simple present popples, present participle poppling, simple past and past participle poppled)

  1. Of water, to move in a choppy, bubbling, or tossing manner.
  2. To move quickly up and down; to bob up and down, like a cork on rough water.
    • 1675, Charles Cotton, Burlesque upon Burlesque:
      His Brains came poppling out like Water

References

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  • popple”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
  • popple in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged © 2002
  • popple in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition