Word.ws English Dictionary

pop the question

pop the question verb: to propose marriage.

Verb

pop the question (third-person singular simple present pops the question, present participle popping the question, simple past and past participle popped the question)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To propose marriage.
    • I was not able to learn what particular ceremony was observed in forming the marriage contract, but am inclined to think that it must have been of a very simple nature. Perhaps the mere "popping the question", as it is termed with us, might have been followed by an immediate nuptial alliance.1846, Herman Melville, chapter 26, in Typee
    • [A]t a pic-nic to Kenilworth, where we drank a good deal of champagne, I actually popped the question, and was accepted. In another month, Robert Stubbs, Esq., led to the altar, Leah, widow of the late Z. Manasseh, Esq., of St. Kitt's!1850, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 9, in Stubb's Calendar, or The Fatal Boots

pop the question meaning in Tamil

pop the question in Tamil

மணந்திட வேண்டுதல், மணவேட்டல்

Examples of pop the question in a sentence

  • If ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.1874, Anthony Trollope, chapter 19, in Phineas Redux:
  • 70% of men welcome the idea of women's proposing marriage; 48% of women say they'd be willing to pop the question.2003 July 13, “He Says and She Says”, in Newsweek, archived from the original on 03 Jun 2025, retrieved 14 Feb 2014:

Forms of pop the question

third-person singular presentpops the question
present participlepopping the question
past participlepopped the question
pastpopped the question

Questions about pop the question

What does pop the question mean?
Pop the question means to propose marriage.
What is pop the question in Tamil?
Pop the question in Tamil is மணந்திட வேண்டுதல், மணவேட்டல். See Pop the question meaning in Tamil.
How do you use pop the question in a sentence?
If ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.
What part of speech is pop the question?
Pop the question is a verb.
What is the past tense of pop the question?
The past tense of pop the question is popped the question.

Words near pop the question in the dictionary

  1. pop stars
  2. pop tags
  3. pop tart
  4. pop tarts
  5. pop the cherry
  6. pop the question
  7. pop tune
  8. pop tunes
  9. pop up
  10. pop wine
  11. pop wines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pop the question (page history and authors); pop the question (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pop the question.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pop the question.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pop_the_question. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.