poppers

English

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

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Noun

poppers (uncountable)

1. (informal) Drugs of the alkyl nitrate class used recreationally as a sexual stimulant, especially among gay men.
   • 1991, Perry Brass, Mirage, page 161:

     Have I been doing too much poppers?

   • 1995, California Community Planning Working Group, California HIV Prevention Plan, page 155:

     Amyl nitrate, colloquially called “poppers” has been implicated in the epidemic among gay men.

   • 2001, Todd Wilk Estroff, Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment, page 39:

     Amyl nitrate, or “poppers,” has been popular as a sexual stimulant in male homosexual communities.

   • 2005, The Advocate, numbers 942-953, page 2:

     When compared with crystal and its devastating effects, poppers was a relatively mild threat. In fact, many only saw its benefits. “Amyl nitrate is the only drug gay people can claim to know better than straight people"

   • 2005, Helge Janssen, Tell Tale, page 91:

     People were convinced that 'poppers' was being pumped through the air conditioning units. That the glasses were being rinsed in morphine! They were desperately trying to find some explanation for their excessiveness.

   • 2009, Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl, Jacek Moskalewicz, Betsy Thom, Two Worlds of Drug Consumption in Late Modern Societies:

     Poppers is a solvent which is inhaled, for instance directly from a small bottle.

   • 2012, Jodi.C.King, I Was a Killing Joke: A Bird's Eye View:

     He was a regular at Thursdays, our weekend hangout, and I had fucked his head up one night by encouraging him to sniff way too much poppers […] .

   • 2020, Jon Bradfield, Martin Hooper, He's Behind You: Eleven Gay Pantomimes:

     This rhyming lark's not as hard as it seems Just like fucking on too much poppers.

Noun

poppers

1. plural of popper
   • 1991, Brenda Smith Faison, Laila Moustafa, The AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Handbook, page 26:

     Poppers are used commonly during social events such as dancing and for muscle relaxation during sex. Poppers are most commonly used in the lesbian and gay population , but have been experimented with by others as well.

   • 1994 November, SPIN, volume 10, number 8, page 87:

     Hank Wilson, a gay activist in San Francisco who founded the Committee to Monitor Poppers in 1981 , is candid about why poppers are so prevalent.

   • 2008, Scott D. Holmberg, Scientific Errors and Controversies in the U.S. HIV/AIDS, page 31:

     When the original case-control studies of men with HIV infection were performed, poppers were associated with having AIDS, but there were concerns that this was the result of confounding with indices of sexual activity

Usage notes

• Grammatically, poppers is used in two different ways
  1. As the plural of popper ("a capsule or ampule of amyl nitrate")
  2. As an uncountable noun ("amyl nitrate")

Spanish

Noun

poppers m pl

1. plural of popper

Swedish

Noun

poppers

1. poppers (drug)