They have names that were popular a century ago.
He is a popular guy in school.
Spicy foods have become increasingly popular.
That is a very popular misconception.
The word “groovy” was popular in the 1960s but it's outdated now.
Her theories are popular among social scientists.
a popular history of physics

Recent Examples of popular from the Web

The Americas -- including some of Puerto Rico’s Caribbean neighbors like Cuba and the Bahamas -- have already been a popular investment destination for Chinese companies for years.

— rebecca spalding, Bloomberg.com, "Bankrupt Caribbean Paradise Woos Chinese Tourists—and Their Cash," 30 Aug. 2017
Popular features included the map, what’s happening, create your schedule, entertainment and concessions. *

— sheldon s. shafer, The Courier-Journal, "Mother Nature, traffic changes help boost 2017 Kentucky State Fair attendance," 30 Aug. 2017
As an example, Mr. Bezos cited Cortana's superior integration with Outlook, the popular calendar and email application that is part of the Microsoft Office suite of software.

— nick wingfield, New York Times, "‘Cortana, Open Alexa,’ Amazon Says. And Microsoft Agrees.," 30 Aug. 2017
Other popular dishes include chargrilled baby octopus, oysters Rockefeller and lake perch tacos.

— jessi virtusio, Post-Tribune, "Bartlett's Fish Camp features fresh raw oysters," 30 Aug. 2017
In recent years, Callaghan's Irish Social Club, a popular bar that sits on the edge of Mobile's downtown area and its Oakleigh Historic Garden District, has been no stranger to developing budding regional talent.

— jared boyd, AL.com, "Watch this Alabama child play a gig with his favorite band at a Mobile concert," 30 Aug. 2017
Making Joe’s popular Z-Man (brisket, two onion rings and smoked provolone cheese on a bun) requires lopping 2 to 3 ounces of meat off 1,200 briskets per week to ensure the smoke permeates all the way through the meat.

— jill wendholt silva, kansascity, "Not your average Joe: Meet the man behind Joe’s Kansas City barbecue, Jeff Stehney," 30 Aug. 2017
That threat got real when one of China's popular services, GreenVPN, told customers it had been ordered to cease operations by 1 July.

— dennis normile, Science | AAAS, "Science suffers as China’s internet censors plug holes in Great Firewall," 30 Aug. 2017
Eerily, however, several of the predictions made by the bot for the next book mirror popular fan theories about what will happen to favorite characters, such as whether one will end up riding a dragon or another may get poisoned by a close adviser.

— ben panko, Smithsonian, "A Neural Network Attempted to Write the Next Game of Thrones Book," 30 Aug. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'popular.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of popular

Latin popularis, from populus the people, a people

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1548

See Words from the same year

popular Synonyms

Synonyms

big, crowd-pleasing, du jour, faddish, faddy, fashionable, favorite, happening, hot, in, large, modish, pop, popularized, red-hot, vogue, voguish

Antonyms

out, unfashionable, unpopular

Related Words

semipopular; favorite, preferred, selected; desirable, liked, wanted; celebrated, famed, famous, noted, notorious, prominent, renowned, well-known; fabled, fabulous, legendary; leading, notable, outstanding, prominent, remarkable; important, significant

Near Antonyms

washed-up; despised, detested, disliked, hated, rejected; insignificant, unimportant; indistinguished, unexceptional; anonymous, nameless, obscure, unknown; inconspicuous

Synonym Discussion of popular

common, ordinary, plain, familiar, popular, vulgar mean generally met with and not in any way special, strange, or unusual. common implies usual everyday quality or frequency of occurrence

- a common error
- lacked common honesty

and may additionally suggest inferiority or coarseness.

- common manners

ordinary stresses conformance in quality or kind with the regular order of things.

- an ordinary pleasant summer day
- a very ordinary sort of man

plain is likely to suggest homely simplicity.

- plain hard-working people

familiar stresses the fact of being generally known and easily recognized.

- a familiar melody

popular applies to what is accepted by or prevalent among people in general sometimes in contrast to upper classes or special groups.

- a writer of popular romances

vulgar, otherwise similar to popular, is likely to carry derogatory connotations (as of inferiority or coarseness).

- souvenirs designed to appeal to the vulgar taste

Other Sociology Terms

bourgeois, ethos, eugenics, exurb, incommunicado, intelligentsia, megalopolis, metrosexual, mores, subculture

POPULAR Defined for English Language Learners

Definition of popular for English Language Learners

: liked or enjoyed by many people
: accepted, followed, used, or done by many people
: of, relating to, or coming from most of the people in a country, society, or group

POPULAR Defined for Kids

Definition of popular for Students

1 :of or relating to most of the people in a country or area

the popular vote

popular culture

2 :enjoyed or approved by many people

a popular game

3 :frequently encountered or widely accepted

popular opinion

—

popularly

adverb

a popularly held belief

Word Root of popular

The Latin word populus, meaning “people,” gives us the root popul. Words from the Latin populus have something to do with people. A population is the group of people living in a particular place. Anything popular is common among or enjoyed by many people. A place that is populous has many people living in it.