Word.ws English Dictionary

popeye

/ˈpɒp.aɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New England/ˈpʌpˌaɪ/

popeye noun: exophthalmia.

Noun

popeye (countable and uncountable, plural popeyes)

  1. Exophthalmia.
  2. Coryphaenoides cinereus (syn. Macrurus cinereus), a deep sea fish.

Proper noun capitalized: Popeye

Popeye

  1. A tough cartoon sailor, full name Popeye the Sailor, characterized by bulging forearm muscles, a squinty eye, and an affinity for spinach.
    • They seem equipped to drag the building between them right down Pennsylvania Avenue, but their progress is arrested by two heroes of Popeye musculature, government men putting a check rein on willful industry.1967, Television Magazine, volume 24, number 11, page 27
    • Lenny gave him the Popeye squint as he rolled off to Frank, the other bodyguard on duty, who was standing on the other side of the stage behind the Epps camp.1991, Anthony Bruno, Bad Luck, page 28
  2. A nickname for a person who has attributes of the cartoon character.
    • The UPU faction, headed by Popeye Jackson, drew considerable numbers of members away from the Prisoners' Union when it split off in 1973, primarily taking with it the union's more radical convicts.1994, Eric Cummins, The Rise and Fall of California's Radical Prison Movement, page 216
    • "Arf, arfl" It was a Popeye expression, which he used to express pleasure or enthusiasm.2006, Alexander Fullerton, The Gatecrashers, page 60

Forms of popeye

pluralpopeyes
alternative formpop-eye

Origin of popeye

From pop + eye.

Fictional character name coined in 1929 by cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar, presumably pop + eye.

Phrases with popeye

Questions about popeye

What does popeye mean?
Popeye means exophthalmia.
What part of speech is popeye?
Popeye can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce popeye?
Popeye is pronounced /ˈpɒp.aɪ/.
What is the plural of popeye?
The plural of popeye is popeyes.

Words near popeye in the dictionary

  1. Popescus
  2. popeship
  3. popeships
  4. popess
  5. popesses
  6. popeye
  7. popeye blacksmelt
  8. popeye blacksmelts
  9. popeyed
  10. popeyes
  11. Popești

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: popeye (page history and authors); Popeye (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Popeye.wav.

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