Definition of "pop"

The best thing on the table was a tray full of bottles of lemon pop.

1941 September 8, LIFE, page 27

British rockers Radiohead solved the "music is dead" dispute last year by allowing fans to name a price for the group's new album, In Rainbows. (More than a million albums sold in the first week alone, at an average $8 a pop).

2008 January–February, Matt Bean, “Your cultural calendar: 7 things to look forward to this year”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, page 134

Nothing screams fall like corduroy! I'm loving this deep seafoam green shacket—made of the thick, ribbed material—that'll give a fab pop of color to a muted ensemble.

2023 November 4, Kim Duong, Megan Uy, Tarah-Lynn Saint-Elien, “22 Best Shackets to Get You Through the Chilly Fall Weather”, in Cosmopolitan‎

Pushes and pops change the stack; indexing just accesses it.

2011, Mark Lutz, Programming Python, page 1371

Immature peanuts, called "pops," are often included when the peanuts are boiled at home […]

1986, Mid-America Folklore, volume 14, page 6

If the peanuts weren't yet mature, boiling them would make the tiny nuts—or “pops,” as they're called at that immature stage—swell up and become more filling.

2013, Becky Billingsley, A Culinary History of Myrtle Beach & the Grand Strand

Although they go by many names across the world freezer pop, ice-pole, pop stick icy-pole ice pop, tip top and ice candy but in the hoods of America they are known and respected as Freeze Pops. The pops are made by freezing flavored liquid such as sugar water, Kool-Aid or some form of fruit juice or purée inside a plastic tube - at least the kinds we ate.

2017, Kenny Attaway, Black Cream: A Handful of Sky & a Pocketful of Confetti‎

The waves came round her. She was a rock. She was covered with the seaweed which pops when it is pressed. He was lost.

1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960,

The court was told Robins had asked if she could use the oven to heat some baby food for her child. Knutton heard a loud popping noise "like a crisp packet being popped" coming from the kitchen followed by a "screeching" noise. When she saw what had happened to the kitten she was sick in the sink.

2011 December 14, Steven Morris, “Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave”, in Guardian‎

"To torture another metaphor, it would be the difference between slowly letting the air out of a balloon, and popping it. Though the dam metaphor is more apt, what with the excess magic flooding outward."

2016 October 10, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Monday, Oct 10, 2016

He that hath . ./ Popp'd in between the election and my hopes.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii], line 65

I startled at his popping upon me unexpectedly.

1712 January 21 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “THURSDAY, January 10, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 271; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853

So, diving in a bottomless sea, they [the Roman Church] pop sometimes above water to take breath.

1626, John Donne, “On the Nativity”, in Sermons, section IV

others again have a trick of popping up and down every moment from their paper, to the audience, like an idle schoolboy

1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman

When company comes, you are not to pop out and stare, and then run in again, like frightened rabbits in a warren.

1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, section II

Lee Cheng popped on the phone line. "Right. I'm tracing it." More keytaps, this time with a few beeps thrown in.

1989, Clifford Stoll, The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

Mix a pancake,Stir a pancake,Pop it in the pan; […]

1986, Christina Rossetti, edited by Alfred Knopf, Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young, Mix a Pancake, page 50

She also looked like a star - and not the Beltway type. On a stage full of stiff suits, she popped.

2011 July 18, Robert Costa, “The Battle from Waterloo: Representative Bachmann runs for president”, in National Review

Ah concur wi Sharon’s wishes n fuck her in the fanny. […] Ah think aboot how close she is tae poppin and how far up ah am, […]

1994 , Irvine Welsh, “Bang to Rites”, in Trainspotting, London: Minerva, page 219

Once the callee (the called function) terminates, it cleans the stack that it has been locally using and pops the next value stored on top of the stack.

2010, Enrico Perla, Massimiliano Oldani, A Guide to Kernel Exploitation: Attacking the Core, page 55

The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf).

2011, John Mongan, Noah Kindler, Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed

Well, dear. You're ready to pop, aren't you? Little one's on its way.

2011 May 28, Matthew Graham, “The Almost People”, in Julian Simpson, director, Doctor Who, season 6/32, episode 6, spoken by Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber)

"Gavin told me one of his friends was pregnant, but my goodness, she looks ready to pop."

2021 April 12, Jocelyn Samara D., Rain (webcomic), Comic 1362 - Prophecy

We were drinking beer and popping pills — some really strong downers. I could hardly walk and I had no idea what I was saying.

1994, Ruth Garner, Patricia A. Alexander, Beliefs about text and instruction with text

31 pop some chocolate You'll stay sharp and focused for that final lunge toward the weekend. Milk chocolate has been shown to boost verbal and visual memory, impulse control, and reaction time.

2008 January–February, “70 Ways to Improve Every Day of the Week”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, page 135

Huck spun along the beams and joists, making me gulp when she popped a wheelie or swerved past a gaping hole...

1995, David Brin, Startide Rising

The tail is the back of the deck; this is the part that enables skaters to pop ollies...

2009, Ben Wixon, Skateboarding: Instruction, Programming, and Park Design

With its airtight seals, the pressure change as trains entered the black, dust-covered station areas caused our ears to pop and doors to flap and bang every time.

2021 June 30, Tim Dunn, “How we made... Secrets of the London Underground”, in RAIL, number 934, page 49

Let the poppers pop and the breakers break / We're cool, cool cats, it's like that

1985, “King of Rock”, performed by Run-DMC

On the night Nolan got popped, the same cop delivered Milton home in the back of the cruiser, but didn’t turn the lights on.

2021, Brandon Taylor, “Filthy Animals”, in Filthy Animals, Daunt Books Originals, page 131

Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech - and nothing happened.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 203

So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 2

There was at that time in the house of the Consul a Pop (or Russian Priest) named Iwan Afanassich.

1822, Mikhaïlov Vasiliï, Adventures of Michailow, section 4

The contemporary priest's... own children are ashamed and some abusers are openly "transmitting the pop" (a gesture of mocking the priest on the street, where a man would touch his private parts while smiling at other passers-by)

2001, Spas Raïkin, Rebel with a Just Cause, 292 n.28

By the end of 1809 she was declaring to all and sundry that she would sooner marry 'a pop than the sovereign of a country under the influence of France'. Since a pop was a Russian Orthodox parish priest, the reference was hardly likely to endear her family to the French.

2006, Peter Neville, A Traveller's History of Russia, section 123