Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A poppet valve.
- n. Nautical A small wooden strip on a gunwale that forms or supports an oarlock.
- n. Nautical One of the beams of a launching cradle supporting a ship's hull.
- n. Chiefly British A darling.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A puppet.
- n. A term of endearment. See puppet.
- n. A shore or piece of timber placed between a vessel's bottom and the bilgeways, at the foremost and aftermost parts, to support her in launching. See cut under launching-ways.
- n. One of the heads of a lathe. Also popit. See cut under lathe-head.
- n. A puppet-valve.
- n. Small bits of wood upon a boat's gunwale, to support the rowlocks and washstrake.
Wiktionary
- n. informal An endearingly sweet or beautiful child.
- n. informal A young woman or girl.
- n. The stem and valve head in a poppet valve.
- n. A figurine or image of idolatry.
- n. A doll made in witchcraft to represent a person, used in casting spells on that person.
- n. nautical One of certain upright timbers on the bilge ways, used to support a vessel in launching.
- n. engineering An upright support or guide fastened at the bottom only.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. See puppet.
- n. (Naut.) One of certain upright timbers on the bilge ways, used to support a vessel in launching.
- n. (Mach.) An upright support or guide fastened at the bottom only.
- n. same as poppit.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a mushroom-shaped valve that rises perpendicularly from its seat; commonly used in internal-combustion engines
Etymologies
- Related to puppet. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English popet, small child, doll, puppet; see puppet. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Six days ago, when I brought her my first earnings in fulltwenty-three roubles forty copecks altogethershe called me her poppet: poppet, said she, my little poppet.”
“Except they were red shoes, so maybe it's more like Dorothy, or that poppet from the Andersen story.”
“The poppet was a little doll manufactured from a corn-cob, dressed in an indigo-colored gown.”
“The English may often be laughable -- with reference to gourds (guards), a "poppet" (puppet) government and "spatial fours" (special forces) -- but it does the job.”
“Which I understand "poppet" means exactly the opposite of what many people think it means.”
“Betty, the editor's housemaid, has given warning, declaring that she cannot live with any gentleman who insists upon taking her in his arms, and tossing her up and down as if she was no more than a baby; at the same time making a chirruping noise with his mouth, and calling her "poppet" and "chickabiddy.”
“We grant the "poppet;" we concede the "chickabiddy;" and then sternly inquire if an excess of loyalty is to impugn the reason of the most ratiocinative editor?”
“There has never been an indication that this poppet was prone to failure.”
“Maximum flight cycles on any poppet of the design that failed on STS-126 is 11 or 12.”
“If this had been a component in a commercial aircraft the basic poppet design deficiency (if that's what it is; could be that the poppet that failed on STS-126 had a unique material or manufacturing flaw) would have been discovered during the typical flight test series before the aircraft was placed into "operational" service.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘poppet’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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of Montreal
Every time I finally decipher Kevin Barnes's song lyrics, I feel somewhat smarter.
These are strange/big/obscure words and phrases from the lyrics of the band 'of Montreal' (intentiona...southern hemisphe..., paradigm, Phaidon Press, permutation, List Christie, Gemini Tactics, eluardian, persecution complex, Himmlers, parabola, Mono Club, subconscious mass... and 132 more...
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EN - baby talk
whoopsie, kitty, baba, beddy-bye, binkie, blankie, boo-boo, botty, bow-wow, brekkie, brekfee, bubby and 84 more...
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wingblossom's Words
flicker, wrinkle, solipsism, tea, aurora, lilt, burnt, crescent, gale, pocket, ephemeral, candied and 136 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 2434 more... -
bilby's Words
pandemic, whirl, guffaw, ethereal, feisty, dunt, ephemeral, pule, flipergebet, prink, maunder, gammon and 1023 more...
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young ...
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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P is for Porch Dog
My P Words
paddington, paddy wagon, paddy whack, paddywhack, paisano, pandemonium, pantaloon, pantaloons, paper tiger, papoose, parachute pants, parcel and 109 more...
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Words I'd Like to Use Someday
thundersnow, phantasmagoria, mercurial, chimerical, taciturn, paraclete, lapis lazuli, flay, guttersnipe, wonky, misanthrope, kestrel and 583 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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p is for...
my favorite voiceless bilabial plosive.
panacea, persnickety, panache, provenance, preternatural, penumbra, perfunctory, perspicacity, potentate, pinguid, plainsong, pleonastic and 228 more...
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Oofy
States of being
seeress, honey bucket, donkeyman, poopyhead, halfwit, vixenish, galoot, hoity toity, shitkicker, miserabilist, wanker, clueless and 261 more...
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A Dalliance of Dahlias
For more flower fun, see these lists:
Rose words by mollusque
Rose varieties by mollusque
Tulip Names I
Tulip Names II: You Know My Name
A Myriad of Iriia la mode, ace o' hearts, acclimation, adhesion, admirable, adorable you, advance, affirmed, after glow, agricola, alabama melody, alabaster queen and 1152 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (P)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
pagan, page, pageant, pageboy, pagoda, paisley, paladin, palfrey, paling, pampas grass, pan, panoply and 194 more...
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Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Words I wrote down while reading this book
heptarchy, kibe, antiquary, wold, mendacious, vamp, vale, miry, calcareous, cerealia, ostleress, desultory and 105 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for poppet.
frindley If not British/Aussie then you have to be Arthur Miller.
The Crucible was the first and as far as I can recall the only time I've ever encountered this word in print/literature, and then in its "technical" sense. Although it was long familiar to me as a term of endearment for little girls here in Australia. Oct 13, 2008
dontcry Cat - I think you pretty much need to be to pull it off without sounding...what's the word...?
Brits! They get all the fun words! Oct 12, 2008
chained_bear "POPPETS, the name of perpendicular pieces of timber which are fixed on the fore and aftmost parts of the bulgeways, to support the ship when launching."
—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 350 Oct 12, 2008
catkisses Don't you have to be British to use this word? :) Aug 22, 2008
asativum Properly preceded by the word "my" when said, with a cackling laugh by crones of a certain age. Jan 20, 2008
treeseed (n): affectionate term for a small child
(n): Voodoo doll
(n): small doll used in sympathetic magic in some forms of Wicca
(n): any small doll
archaic form of puppet Jan 20, 2008
minerva These lines of Rowe have got into my head; and I shall repeat them very devoutly all the way the chairmen shall poppet me towards her by-and-by. Oct 11, 2007