hopak

English

Alternative forms

• gopak (from Russian)

Etymology

1925–30, from Ukrainian гопа́к (hopák), from the interjection гоп (hop).

Compare Ukrainian го́пати (hópaty), го́пкати (hópkaty), гопцюва́ти (hopcjuváty), го́пки (hópky), and dated Ukrainian го́пи (hópy, “dance steps”), го́пка (hópka, “child (jocular)”).

Pronunciation

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈhoːpæk/
• IPA^(key): /ˈhəʊpæk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

hopak (plural hopaks)

1. A Ukrainian national dance in 2/4 time.
   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 1213:

     Somewhere an accordion was playing a jazz-inflected hopak.

   • 2026 May 27, Vitali Vitaliev, “Times of hope and joy”, in RAIL, number 1062, page 68:

     Another explicitly 'joyful' item in my collection is the 1963 Services and Fares brochure, featuring train and ferry timetables to London (and back) from Czechoslovakia, Poland and the USSR, with a happy hopak-dancing Ukrainian cossack in a traditional Ukrainian vishivanka shirt and wide sharovari pants on the cover.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:hopak.

Translations

a Ukrainian national dance

• Armenian: հոպակ (hy) (hopak)
• Belarusian: гапа́к m (hapák)
• Bulgarian: гопак m (gopak)
• Catalan: hopak m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 霍巴克

• Czech: hopak m
• Danish: hopak
• Dutch: hopak
• Estonian: hopakk
• Finnish: hopak
• French: gopak (fr) m, hopak (fr) m
• Georgian: გოპაკი (goṗaḳi), ჰოპაკი (hoṗaḳi)
• German: Hopak m
• Italian: hopak m
• Japanese: ホパーク, ホパーク
• Kazakh: гопак (gopak)
• Korean: 고팩 (gopaek)
• Kyrgyz: гопак (gopak)
• Malayalam: ഹോപക് (hōpakŭ)
• Persian: هوپاک
• Polish: hopak m
• Russian: гопа́к (ru) m (gopák)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: хо̀пак m

  Latin: hòpak (sh) m

• Spanish: hopak m
• Swedish: hopak (sv)
• Turkish: hopak
• Ukrainian: гопа́к (uk) m (hopák)
• Uzbek: gopak

References

• Katherine Barber, editor (1998), “hopak”, in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN.
• “hopak”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• Melnychuk, O. S., editor (1982–2012), “гоп”, in Етимологічний словник української мови [Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language] (in Ukrainian), Kyiv: Naukova Dumka

Anagrams

• phako-

French

Noun

hopak m (plural hopaks)

1. hopak