NIPPING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Nipping

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/nˈɪpɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Nip v. t. (past & past part. nipped, less properly nipt; pres. part. nipping)

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."

To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. "The small shoots... must be nipped off."

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

To vex or pain, as by nipping; hence, to taunt. "And sharp remorse his heart did prick and nip."

To nip in the bud, to cut off at the very commencement of growth; to kill in the incipient stage.

adjective

Nipping adj. Biting; pinching; painful; destructive; as, a nipping frost; a nipping wind.

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Etymology of 'Nipping'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Nipping" Quotes from Famous Books

... maidens there is much to be said. They were as lovely as the rainbow after a storm; they were as fair as the full moon shining above the mountains. They walked with noiseless feet among 5 the clouds and showered gifts upon the earth. They sent the refreshing rain, the silent dew, and the nipping frost, each in its season. They gave life to the fields, and strength to the mountains, and grandeur to the sea. And because of their bounty the earth was glad and the stars twinkled ...

— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... here? And what is the meaning of all that nipping and tugging at your dress? Have you broken another dish? No? Then have done with that cursed head-shaking, and ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Durant an added pathos; and the tears came into her eyes as she noted that under the ragged coat was only a flimsy cotton shirt, so bereft of buttons that the whole chest was exposed to the cold which but a little while before the girl, clad in furs and sheltered by the carriage, had yet found so nipping. She raised her free hand and laid it gently on the exposed breast, and slightly shivered as she felt how little warmth ...

— Wanted--A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford

... abundant.... I saw one horse that had just been killed by a wolf. The front of his chest was torn open to the heart. There was no other wound on the body. I once watched a wolf kill a stray horse on the open prairie. He kept nipping at the hind legs, making the horse turn rapidly till he grew dizzy and fell down. Then the wolf snapped or bit into his chest.... The horse died in a ...

— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... which Arctic navigators are exposed. Should a vessel get between two moving fields or floes of ice, there is a chance, especially in stormy weather, of the ice being forced together and squeezing in the sides of the ship; this is called nipping. ...

— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

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