Word.ws English Dictionary

pocketa-queep

pocketa-queep interjection: a sound from a machine, usually when in need of a tune-up.

Interjection

  1. A sound from a machine, usually when in need of a tune-up.
    • He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep.1939 March 18, James Thurber, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, in The New Yorker
    • TA-POCKETA-POCKETA-QUEEP! TA-POCKETA-POCKETA-QUEEP! TA-POCKETA-POCKETA-QUEEP! went the Odor Extractors.2007, Dan Greenburg, Secrets of Dripping Fang, Book 7: Please Don't Eat the Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, page 93

Examples of pocketa-queep in a sentence

  • Smitty saw the woman, smoke ballooned out from the dual tailpipes of his hurtling car, and the engine's sound changed to an unsettling pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep.2010, David Booth, Every Pointed Star, iUniverse, page 53:
  • It is like the old joke about the man who is called in to repair a gigantic but malfunctioning piece of machinery that is emitting a Thurberian pocketa-queep instead of its normal pocketa-pocketa.2012, Lewis A. Coser, editor, The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton, Transaction Publishers, page 340:

Origin of pocketa-queep

Imitative, from a James Thurber short story.

Questions about pocketa-queep

What does pocketa-queep mean?
Pocketa-queep means a sound from a machine, usually when in need of a tune-up.
How do you use pocketa-queep in a sentence?
Smitty saw the woman, smoke ballooned out from the dual tailpipes of his hurtling car, and the engine's sound changed to an unsettling pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep.
What part of speech is pocketa-queep?
Pocketa-queep is an interjection.

Words near pocketa-queep in the dictionary

  1. pocket-sheriffs
  2. pocket-size
  3. pocket-sized
  4. pocket-watch
  5. pocket-watches
  6. pocketa-queep
  7. pocketability
  8. pocketable
  9. pocketbook
  10. pocketbook issue
  11. pocketbook issues

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pocketa-queep (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pocketa-queep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pocketa-queep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.