nipper
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: nautical
transport
Etymology: Etymology tree
English nip
Proto-Indo-European *-yósder.
Proto-Italic *-āzijos
Latin -āriusnom.
Latin -āriusbor.
Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz
Proto-West Germanic *-ārī
Old English -ere
Middle English -ere
English -er
English nipper
From nip + -er.
Inflected forms:
form: nippers
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: nippers
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: nippering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: nippered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: nippered
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: One who, or that which, nips.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: Any of various devices (as pincers) for nipping.
pos: noun
tags: plural-normally
gloss: A child.
pos: noun
tags: UK
informal
examples: Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?
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).
gloss: A child aged from 5 to 13 in the Australian surf life-saving clubs.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
examples: 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.
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.
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 […]
The Nippers program, for children aged five to thirteen, promotes water safety skills and confidence in a safe beach environment
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.
gloss: A boy working as a navvies' assistant.
pos: noun
tags: historical
gloss: A mosquito.
pos: noun
tags: Canada
Newfoundland
slang
gloss: One of four foreteeth in a horse.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
gloss: A satirist.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: […] ready backbiters, sore nippers, and spiteful reporters privily of good men.
gloss: A pickpocket; a young or petty thief.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
slang
gloss: A fish, the cunner.
pos: noun
gloss: A European crab (Polybius henslowii).
pos: noun
tags: archaic
gloss: The claws of a crab or lobster.
pos: noun
gloss: A young bluefish.
pos: noun
gloss: A machine used by a ticket inspector to stamp passengers' tickets.
pos: noun
tags: dated
examples: The railway ticket nipper has the identification number of the conductor on it […]
gloss: One of a pair of automatically locking handcuffs.
pos: noun
gloss: One of the gloves or mittens worn by fishermen to protect their hands from cold and abrasion.
pos: noun
tags: historical
examples: Suddenly the line flashed through his hand, stinging even through the "nippers," the woolen circlets supposed to protect it.
Today, there are new synthetic materials to protect the hands, but until recently, fishermen wore nippers—thick rubber gloves with cotton lining.
gloss: To seize (two ropes) together.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
Derived words: ghost nipper
nose-nipper
Translations: