Definition nip
Etymology 1
Short for nipperkin, ultimately from Middle Low German nippen or Middle Dutch nipen ("to sip; nip"; > Dutch nippen). Compare also German nippen (“to sip; taste”).
Noun
nip (plural nips)
- A small quantity of something edible or a potable liquor.
Etymology 2
Clipping of nipple.
Noun
nip (plural nips)
- (slang, vulgar) A nipple, usually of a woman.
Etymology 3
From Middle English nippen, probably a byform of earlier *knippen (suggested by the derivative Middle English knippette (“pincers”)), related to Dutch nijpen, knijpen (“to pinch”), Danish nive (“pinch”); Swedish nypa (“pinch”); Low German knipen; German kneipen and kneifen (“to pinch, cut off, nip”), Old Norse hnippa (“to prod, poke”); Lithuanian knebti.
Verb
nip (third-person singular simple present nips, present participle nipping, simple past and past participle nipped)
- To catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon.
- To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip.
- To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy.
- To annoy, as by nipping.
- To taunt.
- (Scotland, Northern England) To squeeze or pinch.
- (obsolete, Britain, thieves' cant) To steal; especially to cut a purse.
Noun
nip (plural nips)
- A playful bite.
- A pinch with the nails or teeth.
- Briskly cold weather.
- A seizing or closing in upon; a pinching
- A small cut, or a cutting off the end.
- (mining) A more or less gradual thinning out of a stratum.
- A blast; a killing of the ends of plants by frost.
- A biting sarcasm; a taunt.
- (nautical) A short turn in a rope.
- (papermaking) The place of intersection where one roll touches another
- (obsolete, Britain, thieves' cant) A pickpocket.
Etymology 4
Verb
nip (third-person singular simple present nips, present participle nipping, simple past and past participle nipped)
- (informal) To make a quick, short journey or errand, usually a round trip.