pocketa-queep

interjection

A sound from a machine, usually when in need of a tune-up.

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Meanings

interjection
  1. A sound from a machine, usually when in need of a tune-up.

    He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep.

    1939 March 18, James Thurber, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, in The New Yorker
    3 more examples

    TA-POCKETA-POCKETA-QUEEP! TA-POCKETA-POCKETA-QUEEP! TA-POCKETA-POCKETA-QUEEP! went the Odor Extractors.

    2007, Dan Greenburg, Secrets of Dripping Fang, Book 7: Please Don't Eat the Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, page 93

    At the instant Mr. Smitty saw the woman, smoke ballooned out from the dual tailpipes of his hurtling car, and the engine's sound changed to an unsettling pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep.

    2010, David Booth, Every Pointed Star, iUniverse, page 53

    It is like the old joke about the man who is called in to repair a gigantic but malfunctioning piece of machinery that is emitting a Thurberian pocketa-queep instead of its normal pocketa-pocketa.

    2012, Lewis A. Coser, editor, The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton, Transaction Publishers, page 340

Origin

Imitative, from a James Thurber short story.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

pocketa-queep. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pocketa-queep

MLA

“pocketa-queep.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pocketa-queep. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pocketa-queep,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pocketa-queep.

Source: pocketa-queep on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.