Word.ws English Dictionary

poppers

poppers noun: drugs of the alkyl nitrate class used recreationally as a sexual stimulant, especially among gay men. Also the plural of popper.

Noun

poppers (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Drugs of the alkyl nitrate class used recreationally as a sexual stimulant, especially among gay men.
    • Have I been doing too much poppers?1991, Perry Brass, Mirage, page 161
    • Amyl nitrate, colloquially called “poppers” has been implicated in the epidemic among gay men.1995, California Community Planning Working Group, California HIV Prevention Plan, page 155

Also used as

poppers is also the plural of popper.

Examples of poppers in a sentence

  • Amyl nitrate, or “poppers,” has been popular as a sexual stimulant in male homosexual communities.2001, Todd Wilk Estroff, Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment, page 39:
  • When compared with crystal and its devastating effects, poppers was a relatively mild threat.2005, The Advocate, numbers 942-953, page 2:
  • People were convinced that 'poppers' was being pumped through the air conditioning units.2005, Helge Janssen, Tell Tale, page 91:
  • Poppers is a solvent which is inhaled, for instance directly from a small bottle.2009, Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl, Jacek Moskalewicz, Betsy Thom, Two Worlds of Drug Consumption in Late Modern Societies:

Origin of poppers

Amyl nitrites were originally sold in small glass ampoules wrapped in cloth. Recreational users would crush or "pop" these vials between their fingers to release their vapours, which is thought to be the origin of the slang term.

Phrases with poppers

Questions about poppers

What does poppers mean?
Poppers means drugs of the alkyl nitrate class used recreationally as a sexual stimulant, especially among gay men.
How do you use poppers in a sentence?
Amyl nitrate, or “poppers,” has been popular as a sexual stimulant in male homosexual communities.
What part of speech is poppers?
Poppers is a noun.

Words near poppers in the dictionary

  1. Popperian
  2. Popperianism
  3. Popperians
  4. poppering up
  5. Popperism
  6. poppers
  7. poppers up
  8. Poppes
  9. poppet
  10. poppet valve
  11. poppet valves

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poppers (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-us-poppers.oga.

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