Word: pipe Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English pīpe, pype (“hollow cylinder or tube used as a conduit or container; duct or vessel of the body; musical instrument; financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, pipe roll”), from Old English pīpe (“pipe (musical instrument); the channel of a small stream”), from Proto-West Germanic *pīpā. Reinforced by Vulgar Latin *pīpa, from Latin pipire, pipiare, pipare, from pīpiō (“to chirp, peep”), of imitative origin. Displaced native Old English fealh and Old English þrūh. Doublet of fife. Cognate with Dutch pijp, German Pfeife, Danish pibe, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk pipe, Swedish pipa, Faroese and Icelandic pípa. The “storage container” and “liquid measure” senses are derived from Middle English pīpe (“large storage receptacle, particularly for wine; cask, vat; measure of volume”), from pīpe (above) and Old French pipe (“liquid measure”). In specific contexts, calques similar units of measure such as Portuguese pipa. The verb is from Middle English pīpen, pypyn (“to play a pipe; to make a shrill sound; to speak with a high-pitched tone”), from Old English pīpian (“to pipe”). Pronunciation: /ˈpaɪp/ 1. To play (music) on a pipe instrument, such as a bagpipe or a flute. Labels: ambitransitive Example: [T]he pide Piper with a ſhrill pipe went piping through the ſtreets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houſes in great numbers after him; all which hee led into the riuer of Weaſer and therein drowned them. Example: Piping down the valleys wild / Piping songs of pleasant glee / On a cloud I saw a child. / And he laughing said to me / Pipe a song about a Lamb: / So I piped with merry chear. / Piper pipe that song again – / So I piped, he wept to hear. 2. To shout loudly and at high pitch. Labels: intransitive Example: "Ar—cher—Ja—cob!" Johnny piped after her, pivoting round on his heel, and strewing the grass and leaves in his hands as if he were sowing seed. 3. To emit or have a shrill sound like that of a pipe; to whistle. Labels: intransitive Example: [W]ith the mariners A fellow-mariner,—and so had fared Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd Among the mountains, and he in his heart Was half a Shepherd on the stormy seas. Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds Of caves and trees: […] 4. Of a queen bee: to make a high-pitched sound during certain stages of development. Labels: intransitive 5. Of a metal ingot: to become hollow in the process of solidifying. Labels: intransitive 6. To convey or transport (something) by means of pipes. Labels: transitive 7. To install or configure with pipes. Labels: transitive 8. To dab moisture away from. Labels: transitive Example: Our chimney was a square hole in the roof; it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and the rest eddied about the house, and kept us coughing and piping the eye. 9. To lead or conduct as if by pipes, especially by wired transmission. Labels: figuratively, transitive Example: Soft baroque music pipes through the ornate, dripping-with-gold church sanctuary. 10. To directly feed (the output of one program) as input to another program, indicated by the pipe character (|) at the command line. Labels: Unix, transitive Example: We can just pipe the output of our command into sed to get rid of any leading whitespaces. 11. To create or decorate with piping (icing). Labels: transitive Example: to pipe flowers on to a cupcake Example: This means a quantity of runouts can be made in advance, allowing more time to flat ice and pipe the cake. 12. To order or signal by a note pattern on a boatswain's pipe. Labels: transitive Example: Pipe down the starboard watch, boatswain, and see that they go. 13. To have sex with a woman. Labels: slang, transitive Example: How you got everybody lit, pipin' up? Oh, she bad with no swag, I can pipe her up Made my last one my last one, I'm wifin' her Example: Now this bitch calling me Pacino, she thinks she fifer The only thing on my mind is tryna pipe her 14. To see. Labels: dated, slang, transitive Example: So I went and laid down on the grass. While laying there I piped a reeler whom I knew. He had a nark (a policeman's spy) with him. So I went and looked about for my two pals, and told them to look out for F. and his nark. Example: "Hey, Greek," Roger was saying, his droning voice coming unpleasantly into the other's musings, "did you pipe that? Did you ever see anything like her?" 15. To invent or embellish (a story). Labels: US, slang Example: […] who ostensibly was handed an all-day sucker by a warm-hearted bandit in the act of robbing a candy store of $40, there was no moral outcry. "Find the girl," was the immediate response of competing editors to their reporters at police headquarters. The men of the press, who knew a piped story when they saw one, quickly found another little girl, presented her with a lollipop, and photographed her skipping rope in front of the candy store. Example: If there was a lull in criminal activity, reporters were not above "piping" a story. 16. To hit with a pipe. Labels: transitive Example: It goes without saying at every turn the cops and I were at it. It was said he may not be a great fighter but he'll stab or pipe anyone, cop or con.