Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use nip in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Nip means to catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon. Example: “The puppy gave his owner’s finger a nip.”

Examples of nip by meaning

verbTo steal; especially to cut a purse.

  • "For nipping Antonio's fruit?" demanded Limpet, astonished into a normal attitude on both feet.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 160

nounA playful bite.

  • The puppy gave his owner’s finger a nip.

nounBriskly cold weather.

  • There is a nip in the air. It is nippy outside.
  • The day had only just broken, and there was a nip in the air; but the sky was cloudless, and the sun was shining yellow.1915, W.S. Maugham, Of Human Bondage, chapter 118

nounA seizing or closing in upon; a pinching.

  • the nip of masses of ice

nounA pickpocket.

  • A novice nip, newly arrived in London, went one afternoon to the Red Bull in Bishopsgate, an inn converted to a playhouse.1977, Gãmini Salgãdo, The Elizabethan Underworld, Folio Society, published 2006, page 27

nounA small amount of food or drink, (particularly) a small amount of liquor.

  • I’ll just take a nip of that cake.
  • He had a nip of whiskey.

verbTo make a quick, short journey or errand, usually a round trip.

  • Why don’t you nip down to the grocer’s for some milk?
  • While the '150' trundles the final half-mile down the single line to Wrexham Central, I nip over the footbridge to explore the main part of the station.2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 58
  • Palace made it 3-1 on 81 minutes, Nketiah nipping in to finish nicely, then doing a no-celebration pose in front of the away fans.2025 January 3, Barney Ronay, “Crystal Palace through after Millwall keeper’s red for head-high tackle on Mateta”, in The Guardian

More sentences with nip

  • I just need to nip to a bank and check my balance.From the entry balance
  • This model merely nips at the margins.From the entry margin
  • The streaker ran across the playing field in the nip.From the entry in the nip
  • She had a nip slip during her Houston concert.From the entry nip slip
  • If you see a bad habit begin to develop, try to nip it in the bud so that it does not become ingrained.From the entry nip in the bud
  • NIP is a multi-pass transmembrane protein.From the entry multi-pass
  • Is it OK to show my nips, or is it rude?2023 August 28, Vanessa Friedman, quoting Eddye, Madison, Wis., “Are There Any Rules About Going Braless?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry braless
  • The wind nipped, hard, and though the air up high was smogless, it was cheerless, too.2023, C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey, Hutchinson Heinemann, page 9. From the entry smogless
  • These myths need to be nipped in the bud before they become conventional wisdom.2020 July 1, Christian Wolmar, “Jumping on the slavery bandwagon... but the facts don't stack up”, in Rail, page 66. From the entry nip in the bud
  • They had climbed an easier approach the day before and nipped in front of us.2012 August 21, Nick Bullock, Echoes: One climber's hard road to freedom, Vertebrate Publishing, →ISBN. From the entry goulotte
  • In summer you can nip over to the Lido for a paddle and a bout of sandcastling.2010 February 1, Jonathan Buckley, The Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto, Rough Guides UK, →ISBN, Travelling with children. From the entry sandcastling
  • A young mechanic named Douglas Corrigan nipped under the wing and pulled them away.2000, Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh: A Biography, page 82. From the entry chock
  • We nipped back along the top to the Sentinel Area, where there's the poorly protected Back Slab.1997, Pete McDonald, Climbing Lessons: Inside Outdoor Education, Pete McDonald, page 86. From the entry frictiony
  • You can keep Max company while I nip out for a jiff.1980, Robert Barr, “The Do-It-Yourself Job” (19:00 min), in Detective, BBC radio drama. From the entry jiff
  • Remember the lad who smashed a Spencer st. wine saloon window to get his weekend nip?1952 May 1, The Argus, Melbourne, page 2. From the entry nipless
  • Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day.1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished…. From the entry nipper
  • I had some beno in my canteen and I took a few nips to steady me.1925, Cosmopolitan, page 18. From the entry beno
  • Then you know they was nip an' tuck after the same young lady.1901 May, Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Crisis, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC. From the entry nip and tuck
  • The recent end-Permian mass extinction struck as chroniosuchians were beginning to diversify, and it has nipped them in the bud.2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherlands, Penguin, published 2023, page 164. From the entry chroniosuchian
  • He knew that I enjoyed discipline as much as I enjoyed feeling the nip of his teeth over the claiming mark.2020, L. V. Lane, Omega Awakening, unnumbered page. From the entry claiming mark
  • Use a regular human nail-trimmer, and be patient as your cat learns to tolerate having the very tip nipped.2009 October 31, Marty Becker, Gina Spadafori, “Scratch-happy: Cat trees, training, trimming offer alternatives to declawing”, in The…. From the entry nail-trimmer
  • Because swimming-hole water has substance: Pine needles tippy-tap your thighs, and tiny fish nip the hair on your legs.2004 July 6, Bob Sipchen, “Will float for food”, in Los Angeles Times, page F5. From the entry tippy-tap
  • Father Dougal: Those women were in the nip!1998, Graham Linehan & al., "Speed 3", Father Ted Series 3, Episode 3, Channel Four. From the entry in the nip
  • Finally, Chthamalus challengeri was characteristic of nip and high wave-exposure environments, given its exclusive appearences in these locations.1990, A. Fuji, H. Nomura, “Community structure of the rocky shore macrobenthos in southern Hokkaido”, in Marine Biology, volume 107, →DOI…. From the entry disapparent
  • You models are too greyhoundish to nip well.1966, Gerald Hammond, chapter 4, in The Loose Screw (Linford Mystery Library), large print edition, Leicester, Leicestershire: Linford…. From the entry pinchability
  • Edmund circled the uproar with hackles up, craving a signal from Bradly to nip this old squaller by her broomstick legs.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 200. From the entry squaller
  • "You'd better not collar anything now, because it's a moral that old Antonio would nip out behind one of those cases."1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 22. From the entry moral
  • "We had it nip and tuck," he added, lightly.1913, Will N. Harben, The Desired Woman. From the entry nip and tuck
  • The next time they darted in at the auroch, Marra nipped at its ear and Pell actually took its jowls in his mouth.2012, Dorothy Hearst, Secrets of the Wolves, page 286. From the entry auroch

Meaning of nip

  1. verb To catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon.
  2. verb To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip.
  3. verb To benumb [e.g., cheeks, fingers, nose] by severe cold.

Full definition of nip

Questions about nip in a sentence

How do you use nip in a sentence?
Nip is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The puppy gave his owner’s finger a nip.”
What is a short sentence with nip?
“He had a nip of whiskey.”
What does nip mean?
Nip means to catch and enclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nip (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use nip in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/nip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.