Citations:Popeye

A tough cartoon sailor, full name Popeye the Sailor, characterized by bulging forearm muscles, a squinty eye, and an affinity for spinach.

• 1967, Television Magazine, Volume 24, Issue 11, page 27:

  They seem equipped to drag the building between them right down Pennsylvania Avenue, but their progress is arrested by two heroes of Popeye musculature, government men putting a check rein on willful industry.

• 1991, Anthony Bruno, Bad Luck, page 28:

  Lenny gave him the Popeye squint as he rolled off to Frank, the other bodyguard on duty, who was standing on the other side of the stage behind the Epps camp.

• 2000, Thomas S. Lee, Jr., The Gods Underground: Project Z, page 335:

  In the corner of his vision he could see the form of the guard, imagining the Popeye squint was examining his every move.

• 2003, Barbara Haynie, The Terrain of Paradise, page 248:

  Hale grinned and winked at her with an exaggerated Popeye squint he had used to tease her when she was a giggly kid.

• Nov. 2006, Men's Health, Vol. 21, No. 9, page 60:

  BIGGER ARMS, FEWER EXERCISES • Auburn University researchers have found that you can blow off boring wrist curls and extensions and still build your Popeye muscles.

• 2006, Laura A. Jacobs, Landscape With Moving Figures: A Decade on Dance, page 44:

  The shapes were Disney animation — as if someone had loosened a screw in that machine — and the dancers looked like errant toadstools, or had Mighty Mouse chests and Popeye muscles, even Saturn rings around midriffs.

• 2009, Kaye Morgan, Killer Sudoku:

  Roche's jaw tightened so much, little Popeye muscles appeared in his cheeks.

• 2011, Steve Hamilton, Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel, page 5:

  He was looking at the man in the pink snowmobile suit with a Popeye squint in his right eye.

• 2011, Danna Korn, Connie Sarros, Gluten-Free Cooking For Dummies, p. 122:

  Choosing and prepping yeast Working the dough: You don't need Popeye arms.