popper

See also: Popper

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒp.ə/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈpɔp.ə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑ.pɚ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒpə(ɹ)
• Homophone: pauper (in accents with the cot-caught merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English poppere, equivalent to pop +‎ -er (suffix forming agent noun).

Noun

popper (countable and uncountable, plural poppers)

1. One who or that which pops.
2. (obsolete) A dagger.
3. A short piece of twisted string tied to the end of a whip that creates the distinctive sound when the whip is thrown or cracked.

   Synonym: cracker

4. (fishing) A floating lure designed to splash when the fishing line is twitched.
5. Either of a pair of interlocking discs commonly used in place of buttons to fasten clothing, a snap fastener.

   Synonyms: snap, snap fastener, press stud

6. A device that pops kernels of corn to produce popcorn.
7. A stuffed and usually breaded jalapeño.
   • 2003, James D. Campbell, Mr. Chilehead: Adventures in the Taste of Pain, page 168:

     You mix habs into the cheese before stuffing your poppers […]

8. A looner (balloon fetishist) who prefers to burst balloons.
   • 2019, Dennis DiClaudio, The Deviant's Pocket Guide to the Outlandish Sexual Desires Barely Contained in Your Subconscious, page 87:

     Looners (as they call themselves) can generally be divided into two categories, regardless of whether they prefer their balloon play with a partner or alone: poppers and non-poppers.

9. (informal, countable) A capsule of amyl nitrite, a recreational drug used during sex.

   Coordinate term: popper up

   • 1986, Mary Bringle, The Senator's Daughter, page 55:

     If a person inhales a popper on the brink — the very brink — of climax, then the orgasm is much more powerful.

   • 1986, Stephen Koch, The Bachelors' Bride, page 240:

     Against all this was the counter-rhythm of the hip-flask and the drugs, that steady resorting at every pause for breath, to the swig of the secret drinker; or, high in his excitement, the burst of a popper and then the sucking sound of Cullen inhaling.

   • 1996, Patricia Nell Warren, Harlan's Race, page 58:

     Then, suddenly, Vince sagged — light-headed. Too many poppers.

   • 1999, Greg Kramer, Hogtown Bonbons, page 8:

     Looks like she's had too many poppers.

   • 1999, Ted Mooney, Singing Into the Piano, page 328:

     When she heard Tuercas snap open a popper, she raised her own eyes instinctively. / His face was flushed red with the drug as he held the ampule to his nose

   • 2002, Brendan Mullen, Don Bolles, Adam Parfrey, Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs, page 195:

     I guess he was tricking with some other hustler a couple of days later and OD'd on one too many poppers—a heart attack in his sleep.

   • 2002, John Griesemer, No One Thinks of Greenland:

     The annex still stood, and from inside came the grunting sounds of Eskimos and GIs in rut. Lavone was sitting near Rudy. He cracked an amyl popper.

   • 2008, David J. Schow, Gun Work, page 91:

     Sucio paused in his dress-down of Barney's lineage, sexuality and potty habits to sample an amyl nitrate popper, which snapped his focus clear with cardiac paddle speed.

   • 2010, Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, Ghosted, page 130:

     Too low. Must get higher! He cracked open a popper, inhaling deeply. Then another. For a brief but thankful moment, a faint high lifted through him. He clicked on the Internet icon, then his email. At that moment the marijuana, coke, and amyl nitrite collided in his bloodstream.

10. (informal, uncountable) Amyl nitrate.
    • 2005, Jack Fritscher, Some Dance to Remember: A Memoir-novel of San Francisco, 1970-1982, page 340:

      Ryan knelt up in bed with his knees against Kick's side. "You okay?" Ryan asked. / "Too much popper," he said. “Maybe I have jet lag.

    • 2019, Lars Iyer, Nietzsche and the Burbs, page 38:

      Maybe he has some popper—that's a gay drug, right? Nicholas Nugent should at least have some popper . . . Art, leaning into the gaggle. Nicholas Nugent, shaking his pretty head. No popper. Do you think it's possible to popper yourself gay?

Derived terms

• air popper
• cherry-popper
• eye-popper
• K-popper
• party popper
• pill-popper
• pill popper
• pizza popper
• popcorn popper
• popper up
• toe popper

 

Translations

snap fastener

Etymology 2

From Popper (“a brand name”), a brand name owned by Queensland United Foods; from 1978.

Noun

popper (plural poppers)

1. (Australia) Synonym of juice box
   • 1997 September 5, Richard Harrowell, “Advice on Skiing Europe”, in aus.snow (Usenet):

     Again buy your own food - for lunch you get some tomato, some Jambon Fume (proscuitto) and a baguette along with some poppers and your^[sic] have a feast.

Middle English

Noun

popper (plural poppers)

1. dagger
   • 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Reves Tale, The Canterbury Tales, 2003, Walter W. Skeat (editor) Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Part 2, The Reeve's Prologue ,

     A joly popper baar he in his pouche ; / Ther was no man for peril dorste him touche.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English popper.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpopeɾ/ [ˈpo.peɾ]
• Rhymes: -opeɾ

Noun

popper m (plural poppers)

1. popper (capsule for recreational use as a sexual stimulant)

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.