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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

popcorn.

A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpɒp.kɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɑp.kɔɹn/General-American/ˈpʌp.kɔɹn/Boston, New-England[ˈpʌp.kɒːn]Boston, New-England

  1. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating.

    uncountable
    My friends and I ordered popcorn during the interval of the movie.

  2. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating. A variety of corn or maize with a hard outer hull that, along with the type of starch it contains, makes it suitable for popping.

    uncountable
    That farm grows popcorn.

  3. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating. A serving of popcorn.

    countable
    I'll have a small popcorn.

  4. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating. A piece of popcorn.

    countable · rare
    She keeps dropping her popcorns.

  5. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating. A bite-size food preparation made by battering and deep-frying one or more ingredients, most often chicken.

    attributive · broadly · countable · uncountable
    popcorn chicken
    Last night we had popcorn chicken.

  6. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating. Entertainment that is, or has the potential to be, popular but is vapid and provides little intellectual or artistic merit.

    attributive · countable · figuratively · uncountable
    The movie was entertaining enough, but it was just popcorn entertainment.
    popcorn movies

  7. A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating. Entertainment for observers.

    countable · figuratively · humorous · uncountable
    If they get in a fight, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the popcorn.

  8. A kind of stitch similar to a bobble.

    countable · uncountable

  9. A form of brainstorming in which participants call out their ideas immediately, instead of waiting for an assigned turn to speak.

    attributive · countable · uncountable

  10. A slow Belgian style of soul music popular in the early 1960s.

    countable · uncountable

  11. A Romanian style of Europop popular in the late 2000s.

    countable · uncountable

  12. A jump straight up with all four feet off the ground.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Short for popped corn. By surface analysis, pop + corn.

verb/ˈpɒp.kɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈpɑp.kɔɹn/General-American/ˈpʌp.kɔɹn/Boston, New-England[ˈpʌp.kɒːn]Boston, New-England

  1. To stand or jump up quickly.

  2. To pop repeatedly, like popcorn cooking.

  3. To use the popcorn stitch.

    rare
Where this word comes from

Short for popped corn. By surface analysis, pop + corn.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.