popple

English

Alternative forms

• pople

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈpɒpl̩/

Etymology 1

Middle English popul, popil, from Old English popul, from Latin populus

Noun

popple (plural popples)

1. (dialect) poplar
   • 1911, Highways and byways of the Great Lakes, The Macmillan company, page 264

     Some of them had recently built a pulp mill, and he called my attention to the young growths of "popple" we could see from the car window and remarked: "There's good pulp material in those trees, but it's not easy to get 'em cut. You'll strike lots of Catholic lumber-jacks who won't have anything to do with cutting a popple tree, and they won't cross a bridge or sleep in a house that has popple wood in it. There's a tradition that the cross on which Christ was crucified was of popple, and they say the wood was cursed on that account.

Etymology 2

Middle English poplen, possibly from Middle Dutch, of imitative origin

Noun

popple (plural popples)

1. Choppy water; the motion or sound of agitated water (as from boiling or wind).
   • 1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 17, Well Tackled!^[1]:

     Commander Birch was a trifle uneasy when he found there was more than a popple on the sea; it was, in fact, distinctly choppy.

Verb

popple (third-person singular simple present popples, present participle poppling, simple past and past participle poppled)

1. Of water, to move in a choppy, bubbling, or tossing manner.
2. To move quickly up and down; to bob up and down, like a cork on rough water.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cotton to this entry?)

References

• popple in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged © 2002
• popple in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition