popcorn
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pahpkawrnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɑpkɔɹn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
chiefly uncountable
A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating.
chiefly uncountable
A type of corn or maize with a hard outer hull that, along with the type of starch it contains, makes it suitable for popping.
Small kernels of corn exploded by heat
attributive
A form of brainstorming in which participants call out their ideas immediately, instead of waiting for an assigned turn to speak.
A slow Belgian style of soul music popular in the early 1960s.
A Romanian style of Europop popular in the late 2000s.
verb
of a guinea pig or chinchilla
To stand or jump up quickly.
To pop repeatedly, like popcorn cooking.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A snack food made from corn or maize kernels popped by dry heating.
Used this way, popcorn is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use popcorn
- “We always enjoy eating buttery popcorn while watching a movie.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.