Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (also popp) a pistol, usu. in pl.

1703		Hell Upon Earth 6: Pop, a Pistol.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 221: His Pop, that’s what they call any thing of a Gun.
1718		C. Hitchin Regulator 19: Pops, alias Pistolls.
1724		‘Frisky Moll’s Song’ in J. Thurmond Harlequin Sheppard 23: A Famble, a Tattle, and two Popps, / Had my Boman when he was ta’en.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. n.p.: pops Pistols.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 34: I gleaned a few things, – such as a pair of pops silver mounted.
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 175: What! Dost think that Hawser Trunnion, who has stood the fire of so many floating batteries, runs any risk from the lousy pops of a landman?
1768		(con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle II in Groom (1999) xxix: Pops Pistols.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: His means are two Pops & a Galloper, i.e. he is a highwayman.
1788		‘Rolling Blossom’ in Festival of Anacreon in Wardroper Lovers, Rakers and Rogues (1995) 180: But once the guard let fly his pop / And Sam became receiver.
1791		‘Highway-man’s Flash Song’ in Confessions of Thomas Mount 20: With pops in your pocket. [Ibid.] ‘Another Highway-man’s Song’ 20: Here and there and every where, / We ride with pop in hand.
c.1800		Song No. 10 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: With my popps in my pocket and a cutlass in my hand.
1816		W.T. Moncrieff All at Coventry II ii: Duelling’s not the go now, pops have given place to maulers.
1820		‘L.A.W—LAW!’ in Butcher at Brixton 16: Ned challeng’d Tuck, but didn’t load his pops with shot or ball.
1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 97: I plunged my fam into my suck, as if for a pop.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford III 240: Lord love ye, they says as ’ow you go to all the fine places in ruffles, with a pair of silver pops in your waistcoat pocket!
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 146: Put a brace of pops to the nob of the ole Tyewig and his darter, and they’ll soon split.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 69: pops Pistols.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1882		‘The Jargon of Thieves’ in Derry Jrnl 8 Sept. 6/5: A pistol is called a ‘pop’ .
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 106: Lay away your old pop, and we will go down on deck and have it out.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Jan. 3/4: The propah capah for some young married women and young ladies of the quiet town of Bridgeport, Conn., is to carry ‘pops,’ or in other words, pistols.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 5 Apr. 6/2: [pic. caption] Mrs Kruschke Pulls a ‘Pop’.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 60: Pops, pocket pistols.
1900		A.H. Lewis ‘Joe Dubuque’s Luck’ in Sandburrs 154: Joe forgets to pinch d’ pop, see! an’ this gezebo gets his hooks onto it.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 202/2: Pulling a pop (Anglo-American). Firing a pistol.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

(b) a bullet.

1830

Lytton Paul Clifford III 78: ‘But if I will not let you come alongside of me, what then?’ ‘Why, I must send one of these here pops through your skull, that’s all!’.

(c) an orgasm, usu. male.

1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 910/2: from mid-C.19.
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 69: Mildred McDonald, the only woman he’d ever been with so far. ‘One little pop,’ Mildred had told everyone [...] ‘and then nothing but smoke’.
2022		I. Fitzgerald Dirtbag, Massachusetts 182: Three hundred dollars a pop [...] every time I came on camera.

(d) (US) a pistol-shot.

1879

Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 27 Sept. 3/1: [headline] A POLICEMAN’S POP / It Keels Over a Mysterious Intruder.

(e) a single instance of sexual intercourse.

1979		E. Torres After Hours 121: We was still coppin’ a pop once in a while.
1999		D. Lypchuk ‘A dirty little story’ in eye mag. 8 July 🌐 They put the devil into hell but she was disappointed because it was a bit of a jiffy pop.

(f) of an automobile, speed, performance.

2023

(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 58: My surveillance truck had no pop [...] I barely kept up.

(a) (usu. US juv.) a fizzy, non-alcoholic drink [note WWI milit. pop wallah, a teetotaller].

1812		Southey letter to Mrs Southey 18 July Letters (1856) II 284: A new manufactory of a nectar, between soda-water and ginger-beer, and called pop, because ‘pop goes the cork’ when it is drawn.
1830		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 26 June 3/3: [He] had better [...] not visit a certain lady up town who sells pop, or he may get pop’d.
1833		C.A. Davis Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 38: We had all been drinkin putty considerable of switchel, and cider, and egg-pop.
1834		Essex Standard 15 Aug. 4/2: What do you substitute? Tea, or lemonade, or pop?
1840		T. Hood ‘Miss Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg’ in Poems (1846) I 169: Home-made pop that will not foam.
1842		Flash (NY) 3 July n.p.: [of a prizefighter nicknamed ‘Ginger Beer’] Ginger Pop’s effervescent was near up, and he showed considerable skill.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 33: Come, Molly, dear, no black-strap tonight, switchel or ginger pop.
1852		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 29 Aug. 4/2: [T]hem exorlted sentiments, like gingur ‘popp’ [...] vill effervess aon bust out ven yer in no vays konsidderin ther subject ov bottelled blazes.
1854		Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Jan. 3/1: John Anderson, a waiter, [...] had actually unwired the pop and doled out the alchohol.
1855		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Jan. 5: [cartoon text] Soda water [...] Pop [...] Lemon [...] Prime Beer.
1867		‘Johnny Cross’ ‘Sally Doe’ in Orig. Pontoon Songster 7: In her room she kept a shop, and sold cakes and ginger pop.
1873		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Little Mr. Bouncer 62: he is a man who gets excited on a bottle of pop.
1884		G.W. Peck Peck’s Boss Book 229: Pop is the most useless of all beverages.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 52: Old Teapot here can come and have pop like the little boys.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 60: Pop [...] ginger beer.
1900		Sporting Times 10 Mar. 1/5: ‘Will you take lemonade or coffee?’ he asked. ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I’ll have coffee. That there pop gives I the wind awful.’.
1910		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley Says 81: Washin’ down a couple of dill-pickles with a bottle of white pop.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 170: – Lord love a duck, he said, look at what I’m standing drinks to! Cold water and gingerpop!
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 109: We’ll get a couple of thermos jugs and keep them filled with soda pop.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 86: We gave the customers a ham-and-cheese sandwich and bottle of pop for a dollar.
1953		J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 27: I’d hustled programs and pop in Kansas City.
1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 4: The luxury of soda pop in deposit bottles.
1975		T. Berger Sneaky People (1980) 111: I don’t drink much pop anyway. I don’t like the fizz.
1984		C. White Life and Times of Little Richard 18: I [...] picked up one of the little pop bottles.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 46: We received jelly doughnuts and warm pop.
2006		C. Carr Our Town 85: Larry asked her to go ‘buy myself a pop, and buy you a pop’.

(b) champagne.

1871		Morning Advertiser 11 Sept. n.p.: Shall the Admirals of England now their former prowess drop, All courage ooze from tarry hands, like fiz from uncorked pop? [F&H].
1884		H. Smart Post to Finish II 251: I went for this Dancing Master myself, and he don’t warrant my calling for ‘pop.’.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 112: Though the food was only moderate we had a middling tap of ‘Pop’. [Ibid.] 344: After a glass of ‘pop’ I foolishly offered to run.
1913		‘J.W.L.’ Slave Stories 104: Jimmy-john get out one of dem pop-bottles from the wine-cellar!
1921		Ethel Waters ‘At the Jump Steady Ball’ 🎵 They started serving me gin and wine, / And everything in wood alcohol line, / Chicago pop and all.
1930		E. Waugh Vile Bodies 4: Drinking what Lady Throbbing, with late Victorian chic, called ‘a bottle of pop’.
1936		G. Greene Gun for Sale (1973) 188: ‘Gives us Christmas feeling,’ Mr Davis said. ‘So will a bottle of pop,’ the girl said.
2000		Indep. Rev. 5 June 1: Alex thinks that, now he’s had one bottle of pop, he might just have another.

(c) in fig. use of sense 2a, i.e. something insubstantial, meaningless.

1892

Kipling ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 151: But all we ever got from such as they / Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller.

(d) (US) any form of alcoholic drink.

1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 198: ‘Get you a pop?’ Burt said to his friend. ‘Another tightener?
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 61: Pretty soon the cops found out he had a habit of having a few pops down at Digger’s bar.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 238: I like my pop as much as the next man.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 172: Let’s go have a couple of pops.

(a) (also pop on) a hit at, an attack, whether physical or verbal; usu. as take a pop (at)

[1622		Middleton & Rowley The Changeling I i: Poppy? I’ll give thee a pop i’th lips for that first, and begin there: (kisses her)].
1786		Northampton Mercury 1 Apr. 4/1: He swore by his Shoul when he met with the pretty bristle-faced Jontleman again, he’d give him a Pop of his Peeper [...] and, without further Ceremony, beat out one of his Eyes.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 31 Jan. 2/2: Bendy gave him an upper pop with his left [...] Bendy received a pop in the mouth.
1853		N.Y. Clipper 6 Aug. 1/7: M’Nulty got a pop in the nose.
1855		(con. 1841) Fights for the Championship 167: Nick [...] contrived to plant two or three left-handed pops.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 199/1: Pop on (Sporting). Quick blow generally on the face.
1931		D. Runyon ‘A Nice Price’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 195: They are not close enough for us to get a pop at them.
1945		C. Himes If He Hollers 112: She [...] slapped me before I could finish. It was a solid pop with fury in it.
1957		R. Prather Always Leave ’Em Dying 90: I gave Sergeant Meadows a pop for you.
1965		C. Himes Cotton Comes to Harlem (1967) 40: It was a solid pop she laid on Coffin Ed’s cheek.
2014		(con. 1926) T. McCauley ‘For Whom No Bells Toll’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] ‘What earned poor Zelda a pop in the nose?’.
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles 123: Ryan translates this as a pop at his gutlessness.

(b) a try, an attempt; thus first pop n., the first try, the first time.

1849		J.J. Hooper ‘The Muscadine Story’ in Chittick Ring-Tailed Roarers (1941) 250: That little black-headed lawyer makes a ten, or a twenty, come every pop!
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 337: I could have a second pop at the long-tails and be with you in time for a half-past six o’clock feed.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 171: Well, he spelt it, putting in a ph and a th and a gh and a h, and I don’t know what all, and I thought he was gone up the first pop.
1882		B. Harte Flip and Found 24: It’s an even thing if she wouldn’t spot me the first pop.
1897		W.S. Maugham Liza of Lambeth (1966) 37: You ’ave fust pop.
1898		Eve. Post (Wellington) 9 Apr. 1: He was getting so daring that we decided to pill him first pop.
1898		Binstead & Wells A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 272: He’d drain off his tankard of bitter at one pop.
1900		Sporting Times 19 May 2/2: At the first pop, lovers of liberty, fraternity, and equality might well feel inclined to endorse the fulminations of the Right Honorable Ritchie.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 9 Aug. 1/6: ‘[H]undreds' o' ther cleverest minds has started systems sartin ter’ break it [i.e. ‘the bank’] fust pop’.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 201: You have got home on the bull’s-eye first pop.
1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Aug. 5/2: Later, while we were burying him, we learned that the Hun had the oil for money making right through, his ‘personal property’ including a crown and anchor board complete with a bag of about 500 Turkish coins. Perhaps he was on his way to try his luck with us, knowing what good sports we are. He was lucky, right enough, receiving a ‘skinner’ first pop.
1922		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 2 Dec. 18/2: Would you believe it, the ‘mug’ picked the card first pop.
1933		(con. WWI) A.E. Strong in Partridge Sl. Today and Yesterday 287: Joe. I saw a cookhouse and decided to give it a pop for a binder.
1941		F. Sargeson ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 156: I thought no, the going’s good, I’ll give it one more pop.
1967		F.J. Hardy in Great Aus. Lover Stories 22: I have obtained [...] inside information about a thirty-three-to-one pop in the last race.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 50/1: give it a birl/burl make an attempt; from causing the coin to spin in the game of two-up; also give it a go and give it a pop.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 260: [of bets] ‘Now [...] you watch the stupid local urgers all plonk on the two local pops.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 162: pop A try or chance at something, when you give something a pop or have a fair pop at something.

(c) as a pop, a ‘go’, a time, an item, each.

1862		‘Artemus Ward’ Artemus Ward, His Book 117: Thay cram theirselves with hi soundin frazis, frizzle up their hare, git trustid for a soot of black close & cum out to lectur at 50 dollers a pop.
1868		‘Mark Twain’ letter 20 Nov. in Letters (1917) I 156: I am simply lecturing for societies, at $100 a pop .
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Feb. 6/3: It serves a man tho’, right, we guess / A bad turn just to cop, / When he won’t play a game for less / Than twenty pounds a ‘pop.’.
1894		Truth (Sydney) Feb. 1/7: Marriages are now celebrated in Melbourne at rates from £1 to 7s 6d per pop.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 35/1: It’s a nerve-shaking game this – half-a-crown a pop – every man of the thirteen a day-laborer with ruin leering at him from the mouth of the leather cylinder.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Dec. 34/3: She was a little toff, and I treated her as a toff. I spent a lot of money on her at times – sometimes half a crown at a pop.
1931		‘William Hatfield’ Sheepmates 72: There’s too big of a mob fer one man to shout the house on his pat at a zac a pop, so you shove in a deaner a nob and flip the rats an’ mice, see?
1954		Sun-Herald (Sydney) 14 Feb. 52/5: Get your box for a grandstand view [...] only a dollar a pop!
1967		(con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 254: ‘How much?’ ‘A deuce a pop.’.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 29: Had me over twenty suits, three hundred a pop.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 127: Sexual favours could be had [...] for the modest price of only one large bar of chocolate a pop.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 150: Parting with the very steep price of three quid a pop.
1984		W. Murray Tip on a Dead Crab 229: His stud fee was put at only a thousand dollars a pop.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 53: White trash hookers [...] charging the bystanders a buck a pop to watch it go down.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 38: Crystal vases that I know cost two or three hundred quid a pop.
2007		UGK ‘Int’l Player’s Anthem’ 🎵 She be cross country, givin’ all that she got / A thousand a pop, I’m pullin’ Bentleys off the lot.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 14: Guys paying five buck a pop to see bootlegged copies of Deep Throat.
2015		Guardian G2 3 July 5/1: A restaurant in mid-town Manhattan — the kind where veal tomahawk for for $50 a pop.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 84: The first five ‘coons,’ ‘jigaboos,’ ‘tar babies,’ and ‘Sambos’ were free. After that, it was three dollars an epithet. ‘Nigger’ [...] was ten bucks a pop.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 78: The price is [...] a yard a pop for special favors.

(d) a proposal.

1879

‘’Arry on the ’Igher Education of Women’ in Punch 5 Apr. in P. Marks (2006) 151: I felt certain she’d jump at me, Charlie – pops only come once in a while.

(a) (drugs) an injection of a narcotic drug.

1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Take a pop, to take an injection of morphine.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 263: What you say, Solly? A free pop on me?
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 90: A man could get so desperate for a pop that he would make a solution out of sleeping tablets.
1956		‘Raymond Thorp’ Viper 66: Jokingly he offered me the box. ‘Care for a pop?’.
1958		H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 184: Gimme a pop, p-please.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 97: [A] swinging life of pops and happiness and escapism.
1963		‘Geoffrey Tolhurst’ Flat 4 King’s Cross (1966) 112: ‘I promise. I’ll never take another pop. Oh, help me, Carla’.
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 330: The doc will look at you first thing, he sees how sick you are he’ll give you a pop.
1989		(con. 1938) Courtwright & Des Jarlais Addicts Who Survived 133: I could buy a half-ounce of heroin for seven dollars. I’d get more for seven dollars than I’d get spending fifty cents a pop.
1992		P. Earley Hot House 330: The first shot contained three hundred milligrams of the antipsychotic drug Thorazine, but that wasn’t enough to knock out the bulky convict. The second pop contained a slightly larger dose and it had done the trick.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 366: I [...] had them supply the junkies with free pops taken from our 1st stateside shipment.

(b) a sip or swig of a drink; a drink.

1974		G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade (1975) 29: So we have a couple of pops, he’s buying, and we talk.
1997		G.V. Higgins Change of Gravity [ebook] If her talk starts to distract, he just buys her another drink. And if one pop doesn’t quite do the job, another one after it will.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 4: Just a few pops with Tommy.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] She’d had a couple of pops so it was only a matter of time before the hilarity turned to rage and self-pity.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 43: My nerves were nuked. I took three quick pops of Old Crow.

(c) (drugs) any variety of amphetamine in pill form; any pill.

1970		G. Scott-Heron Vulture (1996) 88: John carried Red Birds, Yellow Jackets, Purple Hearts, and Blue Heavens in quantity. They were the genuine pops that everybody had heard of.
1979		S. King Dead Zone (1980) 106: Johnny slept off his valium pop.