Pops

How to spell pops

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pops

What does pops mean?

1. verbBursts, bangs, or moves suddenly and quickly (third-person singular of 'pop').
2. nounAn affectionate informal name for one's father.

Pops in a sentence

• verb

  The cork pops loudly when she opens the bottle.

• noun

  Every Sunday she calls her pops to check how he is.

• verb

  He often pops into the office on his way home.

• noun

  The kids ran to greet their pops at the door.

Where does pops come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'pop' is imitative in origin, meaning it was coined to mimic the short, sharp bursting sound it names; it appeared in English in the medieval period as an echoic word for a light explosive noise. From that sound sense it spread in many directions: to the bursting of small objects, to the quick action of moving suddenly ('pop in'), and, much later and chiefly in informal speech, to a fizzy drink whose cork or cap goes 'pop'. The affectionate term for a father comes from a separate but related family of nursery sounds (alongside 'papa' and 'pa'), reflecting the easy syllables a child first produces. The form 'pops' simply adds the ordinary English '-s', either to make a plural or to mark the third-person singular of the verb. Because every part of the word is regular and phonetic, it carries none of the silent-letter or doubled-consonant traps that catch adult spellers.

How the word is built

• pop (imitative root: a short explosive sound)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb ending)