Pepsi

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. A brand of carbonated cola non-alcoholic drink produced by the company PepsiCo.
noun
  1. A serving of Pepsi.
  2. A person from Quebec, Canada.
noun
  1. Alternative form of Pepsi (“person from Quebec”).

Pronunciation

pĕpʹsē /ˈpɛpsi/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Pepsi.wav

Word forms

Pepsi Pepsis

Etymology

Originally short for Pepsi-Cola, coined in 1898 as a renaming of the brand from "Brad's Drink", in order to imply that the fizzy drink could cure dyspepsia. While some have suggested Pepsi is short for the digestive enzyme pepsin, sometimes with the assumption that pepsin was used as an ingredient in Pepsi, this is a folk etymology, as there is no official confirmation of it nor any evidence for a link between the enzyme and the beverage. Nonetheless, both the words pepsin and dyspepsia ultimately derive from Ancient Greek πέψις (pépsis), which means “cooking, fermentation or digestion”. (Compare Italian pepsi, from the same source.) (person from Quebec): In reference to their supposed love of junk food.

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