goop

English

Etymology

1930s, perhaps a variant of goo; compare gloop.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡuːp/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːp

Noun

goop (usually uncountable, plural goops)

1. (informal, usually uncountable) A thick, slimy substance; goo.
   • 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, page 7]”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 23 December 2014:

     The flesh [of the mistletoe berry] is sticky, and forms strings and ribbons between my thumb and forefinger. For the mistletoe, this viscous goop – and by the way, viscous comes to English from viscum – is crucial. The stickiness means that, after eating the berries, birds often regurgitate the seeds and then wipe their bills on twigs – leading to the seeds' getting glued to the tree, where they can germinate and begin the cycle anew.

2. (countable, informal, derogatory, dated) A silly, stupid, or boorish person.
   • 1963, P.G. Wodehouse, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, chapter 22:

     I pointed out that Stiffy, who is pure padded cell from the foundation up, was planning to marry the Rev. H.P. Pinker, himself as pronounced a goop as ever preached the Hivites and Hittites

Derived terms

• goopy

Translations

A thick, slimy substance

German: Pampe (de) f Italian: sbobba (it) f Polish: paćka f, babranina f

Verb

goop (third-person singular simple present goops, present participle gooping, simple past and past participle gooped)

1. (informal) To apply a thick, slimy, or goo-like substance.
   • 2014, William Gibson, The Peripheral, G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN:

     Airstream, 1977. He showed her ones on eBay that looked like blunt rifle slugs, went for crazy money in any condition at all. The uncle had gooped this one over with white expansion foam, gone gray and dirty now, to stop it leaking and for insulation.

2. (informal, possibly obsolete) To stare; gawk.
   • 1925, Margaret Turnbull, Alabaster Lamps‎:

     Young John blushed at being found “gooping” at himself in the glass.

   • 1955, Ring Up the Curtain: Four Plays‎:

     He always said vegetables are grown to be eaten, not gooped at. Even a donkey doesn't want a carrot a foot long. I've always remembered. Of course he never won a thing at the Show.

   • 1968, Christianna Brand, What Dread Hand: A Collection of Short Stories‎, The Hornet's Nest:

     it was dreadful, it was frightening, to be the sort of woman that, for some unknown reason, all men looked at, all men gooped at, all men—wanted.

References

• “goop”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987–1996.

Anagrams

• PoGo, pogo