nipper
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈnɪpə(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ɪpə(ɹ)
Forms: form: nippers
Etymology: From nip + -er.
Senses: examples: text: Watt saw the little movements of the stuff, the little bulgings and crumplings, and the sudden indrawings, where it was nipped, between forefinger and thumb probably, for those are the nippers.
ref: 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
glosses: One who, or that which, nips.
glosses: Any of various devices (as pincers) for nipping.
examples: text: Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?
ref: 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001, part 1, page 55:
text: No, this is not a creche: nippers should not be running around, fighting under the pool table or generally creating havoc (this applies to dogs, too).
ref: 2018 June 6, Tony Naylor, “The new rules of pub etiquette: don't flirt with bar staff or steal the glasses”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
glosses: A child.
examples: text: 2003 Some Like It Hot: The Beach As a Cultural Dimension
SLSA has become a multi-million dollar enterprise comprising 262 clubs located around the Australian coastline, with 100000 members, which included thousands of juniors or 'nippers', as they were more commonly known.
text: It is the first day of training for a group of ten 'little nippers' (novice surf life-savers). An assortment of children expectantly hover in the clubhouse.
ref: 2008, Tania Cassidy, Robyn L. Jones, Paul Potrac, Understanding Sports Coaching: The Social, Cultural and Pedagogical Foundations of Coaching Practice:
text: 2009, Didgeridoos and Didgeridon'ts: A Brit 's Guide to Moving Your Life Down Under
Every club around Australia offers a Nippers programme. Nippers is open to children from the age of 5 through to 13 years old […]
text: The Nippers program, for children aged five to thirteen, promotes water safety skills and confidence in a safe beach environment
ref: October 6, 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20120321105500/http://sls.com.au/content/nipper-numbers-exceed-60000
text: September 5, 2013, Eve Jeffery, "Nippers season begins on the north coast", in Echonetdaily
Of our movement’s 153,000 members, over 58,500 are nippers (5-13 years). This equates to nearly 40% of our total membership and shows just how significant the junior movement is within surf lifesaving.
glosses: A child aged from 5 to 13 in the Australian surf life-saving clubs.
glosses: A boy working as a navvies' assistant.
glosses: A mosquito.
glosses: One of four foreteeth in a horse.
examples: text: […] ready backbiters, sore nippers, and spiteful reporters privily of good men.
ref: a. 1569 (date written), Roger Ascham, edited by Margaret Ascham, The Scholemaster: Or Plaine and Perfite Way of Teaching Children, to Vnderstand, Write, and Speake, the Latin Tong, […], London: […] John Daye, […], published 1570, →OCLC:
glosses: A satirist.
glosses: A pickpocket; a young or petty thief.
glosses: A fish, the cunner.
glosses: A European crab (Polybius henslowii).
glosses: The claws of a crab or lobster.
glosses: A young bluefish.
examples: text: The railway ticket nipper has the identification number of the conductor on it […]
ref: 1908, Transport World, volume 24, page 319:
glosses: A machine used by a ticket inspector to stamp passengers' tickets.
glosses: One of a pair of automatically locking handcuffs.
examples: text: Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging even through the "nippers," the woolen circlets supposed to protect it.
ref: 1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous:
text: Today, there are new synthetic materials to protect the hands, but until recently, fishermen wore nippers—thick rubber gloves with cotton lining.
ref: 1997, Mark Kurlansky, Cod, page 112:
glosses: One of the gloves or mittens worn by fishermen to protect their hands from cold and abrasion.
Synonyms: sense: pickpocket
word: pickpocket
Derived terms: ghost nipper
nose-nipper