Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A poppet valve.
  • noun A small wooden strip on a gunwale that forms or supports an oarlock.
  • noun One of the beams of a launching cradle supporting a ship's hull.
  • noun Chiefly British A darling.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A puppet.
  • noun A term of endearment. See puppet.
  • noun A shore or piece of timber placed between a vessel's bottom and the bilgeways, at the foremost and aftermost parts, to support her in launching. See cut under launching-ways.
  • noun One of the heads of a lathe. Also popit. See cut under lathe-head.
  • noun A puppet-valve.
  • noun Small bits of wood upon a boat's gunwale, to support the rowlocks and washstrake.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See puppet.
  • noun (Naut.) One of certain upright timbers on the bilge ways, used to support a vessel in launching.
  • noun (Mach.) An upright support or guide fastened at the bottom only.
  • noun same as poppit.
  • noun See Headstock (a).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun informal An endearingly sweet or beautiful child.
  • noun informal A young woman or girl.
  • noun The stem and valve head in a poppet valve.
  • noun A figurine or image of idolatry.
  • noun A doll made in witchcraft to represent a person, used in casting spells on that person.
  • noun nautical One of certain upright timbers on the bilge ways, used to support a vessel in launching.
  • noun engineering An upright support or guide fastened at the bottom only.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a mushroom-shaped valve that rises perpendicularly from its seat; commonly used in internal-combustion engines

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English popet, small child, doll, puppet; see puppet.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Related to puppet.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word poppet.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • These lines of Rowe have got into my head; and I shall repeat them very devoutly all the way the chairmen shall poppet me towards her by-and-by.

    October 11, 2007

  • (n): affectionate term for a small child

    (n): Voodoo doll

    (n): small doll used in sympathetic magic in some forms of Wicca

    (n): any small doll

    archaic form of puppet

    January 20, 2008

  • Properly preceded by the word "my" when said, with a cackling laugh by crones of a certain age.

    January 21, 2008

  • Don't you have to be British to use this word? :)

    August 22, 2008

  • "POPPETS, the name of perpendicular pieces of timber which are fixed on the fore and aftmost parts of the bulgeways, to support the ship when launching."

    Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 350

    October 13, 2008

  • Cat - I think you pretty much need to be to pull it off without sounding...what's the word...?

    Brits! They get all the fun words!

    October 13, 2008

  • If not British/Aussie then you have to be Arthur Miller.

    The Crucible was the first and as far as I can recall the only time I've ever encountered this word in print/literature, and then in its "technical" sense. Although it was long familiar to me as a term of endearment for little girls here in Australia.

    October 13, 2008