popoff

[pop-awf, -of]

noun

1. a person who generally speaks loudly or irately; indiscreet arguer or complainer.

adjective

1. pertaining to or characteristic of such a person.

   His popoff remarks cost him many friends.

Word History and Origins

Origin of popoff¹

First recorded in 1940–45; noun, adj. use of verb phrase pop off

Example Sentences

Frank Popoff, a chief executive and chairman who tried to make Dow Chemical more conciliatory toward regulators and environmentalists in the late 1980s and ’90s, and who prodded the chemical industry to adopt safer practices, died on Feb. 25 at his home in Midland, Mich., where Dow is based.

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When the Bulgarian-born Mr. Popoff was named Dow’s president and chief executive in 1987, the company had begun trying to shed its image as a pugnacious chemical giant that had manufactured napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War; released toxic waste, like dioxins, into the Tittabawassee River from its plant in Midland; and fought the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent flyover inspections of its emissions.

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An estimated $50-million advertising campaign that had begun two years before Mr. Popoff rose to the top used the slogan “Dow lets you do great things.”

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“I think we have a fair amount of work to do in terms of the way we are viewed,” Mr. Popoff told The New York Times in 1987, shortly before succeeding Paul F. Oreffice as chief executive.

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In 1991, Mr. Popoff and another Dow executive, David Buzzelli, set up a panel of outside environmental policy advisers — among them Lee Thomas, a former E.P.A. administrator — who scrutinized Dow’s operations and were able to obtain confidential information.

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