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Nipping   /nˈɪpɪŋ/   Listen
verb
Nip  v. t.  (past & past part. nipped, less properly nipt; pres. part. nipping)  
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."
2.
To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. "The small shoots... must be nipped off."
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."
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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nipping" Quotes from Famous Books



... had come in from the country, all to make a merry Christmas with us. I felt sorry, but it was quite impossible, so I wished Mr. Bluff a "Merry Christmas," and hurried homeward through the cold and nipping air. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... by a few stitches taken with stout thread and the lower end of the bait should not reach more than a quarter of an inch beyond the bottom of the hook, because the small-mouth has a villainous trick of giving his prey a stern chase, nipping constantly and viciously at the tail, and the above arrangement will be apt to hook him at the first snap. Owing to this trait, some artificial minnows with one or two hooks at the caudal end, are very ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... my animal, and me top of her, the biggest fool dug out, up the same canyon. The rocks on the sides was pecked smooth as a beaver-skin, ribbed with the grain, and the ground was covered with bits of cedar, like a cavayard of mules had been nipping and scattering them about. Overhead it was roofed, leastwise it was dark in here, and only a little light come through the holes in the rock. I thought I knew where we was, and eeched awfully to talk, but I sot still and didn't ask ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... round of select academies and classical institutes that my father tried, and that tried me, as check aprons and love are more inculcating than canes and quarterly bills; and however it may be with my head, my heart never has forgotten the lessons I learned there. Thither, on the nipping nights of winter, brought I my small fingers and toes, numbed and aching with snow-balling and skating, to be tenderly rubbed before the fire, or fondly folded in the motherly apron. Thither brought I an extensive and various assortment of splinters and fresh cuts; thither my impervious nose, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... close of the day he saw a ragged little farmer boy, with a bean pole for a rod, and the simplest possible sort of a line, who was nipping the fish out of the water about as fast as he could throw his line in. He watched the boy in amazement for awhile, and then asked him how it was that one, with so fine a rod and line, could catch no fish, while he with his poor outfit was catching ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton


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