nippers

Noun

nipper (plural nippers)

1. One who, or that which, nips.
   • 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.1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC
2. (plural-normally) Any of various devices (as pincers) for nipping.
3. (UK, informal) A child.
   • Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?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...
4. (Australia) A child aged from 5 to 13 in the Australian surf life-saving clubs.
   • 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.2003, Some Like It Hot: The Beach As a Cultural Dimension
5. (historical) A boy working as a navvies' assistant.
6. (Canada, Newfoundland, slang) A mosquito.

See all 18 meanings of nipper