boop

Imitative; compare beep.

• IPA^(key): /buːp/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːp

boop (plural boops)

1. A low-pitched beeping sound.
   • 1989, Keith Peterson, The Trapdoor:

     When something important happened, a polite sort of boop went off, and up in the right-hand corner of your screen, above the copy, a word or two appeared: Urgent, Bulletin, Late Stocks, whatever.

   • 2008, Russell Dean Vines, Composing Digital Music For Dummies, page 281:

     Originally, computers' attempts at making music were recognizable by their beeps and boops and weird swoops. And to suggest that the rhythms laid down by a^[sic] electronic drummer were anything close to swingin' was humorous.

   • 2008 January 28, Jon Pareles, Nate Chinen, Kelefa Sanneh, Ben Ratliff, Ben Allison, “New CDs”, in New York Times‎:

     Guitars riffle precise chords and lilt through arpeggios, keyboards go boop, and every flick of a drumbeat is in place.

   • 2008 April 20, Jon Pareles, “Rasps, Boops, Snark and Sartre”, in New York Times‎:

     Santogold, from Brooklyn, may be mocking scene pretensions, defending the creative impulse or both in her single, “L.E.S. Artistes,” with its drumstick-clicking beat, electro boops and dance-rock chorus.

2. (colloquial) A gentle or playful tap or strike, especially on the nose.

boop (third-person singular simple present boops, present participle booping, simple past and past participle booped)

1. (intransitive) To produce a low-pitched beeping sound.
   • 2009 July 20, The New York Times, “New CDs”, in New York Times‎:

     The music on “LP” is almost entirely unnatural, booping and puffing, buzzing and ticking in tones no acoustic instrument would make.

2. (transitive, colloquial) To strike gently or playfully; to bop (especially on the nose).
   • 2013, Kate Danley, Maggie on the Bounty:

     He spun around and booped me on the nose.