piping

Verb

pipe (third-person singular simple present pipes, present participle piping, simple past and past participle piped)

1. (ambitransitive) To play (music) on a pipe instrument, such as a bagpipe or a flute.
   • [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.1605, R[ichard] V[erstegan], “Of the Antient Manner of Living of Ovr Saxon Ancestors. […]”, in A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: In Antiquities. Concerning the Most Noble and Renovvmed^([sic –...
2. (intransitive) To shout loudly and at high pitch.
   • "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.1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter II, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC, page 17
3. (intransitive) To emit or have a shrill sound like that of a pipe; to whistle.
   • [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: […]1827, William Wordsworth, “The Brothers”, in The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. In Five Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 125
4. (intransitive) Of a queen bee: to make a high-pitched sound during certain stages of development.
5. (intransitive) Of a metal ingot: to become hollow in the process of solidifying.
6. (transitive) To convey or transport (something) by means of pipes.

See all 40 meanings of pipe