nip

Meanings

Noun

• A small quantity of something edible or a potable liquor.
• A nipple, usually of a woman.
• 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.
• 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.
• A short turn in a rope.
• The place of intersection where one roll touches another
• A pickpocket.

Verb

• 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 benumb [e.g., cheeks, fingers, nose] by severe cold.
• To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy.
• To annoy, as by nipping.
• To taunt.
• To squeeze or pinch.
• To steal; especially to cut a purse.
• To affect [one] painfully; to cause physical pain.'
• To make a quick, short journey or errand, usually a round trip.

Origin

• . Compare also German nippen.
• From late Middle English nippen, probably of Low German or Dutch origin, probably a byform of earlier *knippen (suggested by the derivative Middle English knippette), from Middle Low German knīpen, from Old Saxon *knīpan, from Proto-West Germanic *knīpan, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *knīpaną ("to pinch").
• Related to Dutch nijpen, knijpen, Danish nive ("pinch"); Swedish nypa ("pinch"); Low German knipen; German kneipen and kneifen, Old Norse hnippa ("to prod, poke"); Lithuanian knebti.