Edit page | Page history | Printable version

nip

1. A seizing or closing in upon; a pinching; as, in the northern seas, the nip of masses of ice.

2. A pinch with the nails or teeth.

3. A small cut, or a cutting off the end.

4. A blast; a killing of the ends of plants by frost.

5. A biting sarcasm; a taunt.

6. A short turn in a rope. Nip and tuck, a phrase signifying equality in a contest.

1. To catch and inclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon. May this hard earth cleave to the nadir hell, down, down, and close again, and nip me flat, if I be such a traitress. (Tennyson)

2. To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. The small shoots . Must be nipped off. (Mortimer)

3. Hence: To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy.

4. To vex or pain, as by nipping; hence, to taunt. And sharp remorse his heart did prick and nip. (Spenser) To nip in the bud, to cut off at the verycommencement of growth; to kill in the incipient stage.

Origin: OE. Nipen; cf. D. Niipen to pinch, also knippen to nip, clip, pinch, snap, knijpen to pinch, LG. Knipen, G. Kneipen, kneifen, to pinch, cut off, nip, Lith. Knebti.