nope

Pluralnopes

Formsnopes, noping, noped

1. 1
   particlecolloquialemphatic

   An informal or casual way of saying no.

   Nope, that's not what I meant at all.

   She asked if I'd finished, and I told her nope.

   Similarno

   Oppositeyeah, yes

   Note

   The final p is the sound of a closing mouth: no said with the lips snapped shut, which is why it so often lands emphatic and final. R. Foli's Ill weeds (1880) describes a "no" ended with such pressure of the lips that it sounded like nope. It long carried a schoolroom stigma: a Detroit Board of Education pledge of about 1930 asked children to say a good American "no" instead.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialcountable

   A negative reply; an informal way of answering no.

   His response to every plan was the same flat nope.

   I expected agreement, but all I got was a quiet nope.

   Similarno, refusal

   Oppositeyes

   Note

   Treated as a noun, the reply becomes countable. It takes a plural, nopes, and pairs naturally with yeps, as when Tom Higgins tallied Dale Earnhardt's five "yeps" and three "nopes" in Practice quick...and swim (1981). Its most familiar frame is I'll take that as a nope, said when a look or a silence has already answered for someone.

3. 3
   nounslangcountable

   Something intensely unpleasant (a situation or animal) that prompts instant rejection, with no thought of putting up with it.

   Like recoiling from a touch of something slimy before your brain even finishes the thought.

   A snake coiled on the porch step is an immediate nope.

   She decided the haunted-house tour was a hard nope.

   Similarno

   Note

   Slang turns the reaction into the thing: the object is named by the refusal it provokes. It works as a countable noun, and also as a mass noun measured out like a substance. Sam Plank's 2016 headline calls a cemetery with a haunted playground "a casket full of nope." The joke depends on hearing the emphatic "no" inside it, so it belongs to playful, casual writing.

   That whole flooded basement is just full of nope.

   Spiders the size of my hand? That's a lot of nope.

4. 4
   noundialectalEast MidlandsNorthern Englandcountable

   A blow to the head.

   A single nope to the temple left him dazed for a moment.

   He delivered a sharp nope that ended the brawl at once.

   Similarblow, knock, clout, whack

   Note

   A dialect word of the East Midlands and Northern England, possibly shaped by nape and knap, and unrelated to the casual "no" spelled the same way. It is a blow you fetch someone. Joseph Hunter's The Hallamshire Glossary (1829) gives "I'll fetch thee a nope," and Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1823) lands one "on the costard," the head.

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