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Nip   Listen
verb
Nip  v. t.  (past & past part. nipped, less properly nipt; pres. part. nipping)  
1.
To catch and inclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon. "May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell, Down, down, and close again, and nip me flat, If I be such a traitress."
2.
To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip. "The small shoots... must be nipped off."
3.
Hence: To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy.
4.
To vex or pain, as by nipping; hence, to taunt. "And sharp remorse his heart did prick and nip."
To nip in the bud, to cut off at the very commencement of growth; to kill in the incipient stage.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nip" Quotes from Famous Books



... interfere. As you say, Cynthia would take a melancholy pride in being persecuted. Look here, Raymonde, you're a young blighter yourself sometimes, but you don't go in for this kind of rubbish. Can't you think of some plan to nip the thing in the bud before it goes ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... this, isn't it? Look out for your shins on the chairs. Switch on the light, Harvey. There, aren't they rippers? Quite tame, too. They know us quite well. They know they're going to be fed, too. Hullo, Sir Nigel! This is Sir Nigel. Out of the 'White Company', you know. Don't let him nip your fingers. This other one's ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... spectacle of hundreds of half-naked and starving wretches who fruitlessly implored aid or who silently expired unaided. Loyola and his colleagues, themselves subsisting from day to day on alms, felt often—we are told—the nip of hunger, yet they needed no incitement which these scenes of woe did not spontaneously supply. They were at once alive to the claims of humanity and to the requirements of Christian duty. They begged for the perishing, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Fuller's farm," exclaims a thirsty veteran on reaching the top, "and I'll pull up and have a nip of ale, please God." "Hang your ale," cries a certain sporting cheesemonger, "you had better come out with a barrel of it tacked to your horse's tail."—"Or 'unt on a steam-engine," adds his friend ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... physician, as we prefer to support ten lazy impostors rather than reject one real invalid. Nevertheless we have among us as few foreign idlers as native ones. In this matter also, the influence of our institutions is found to be powerful enough to nip all such tendencies in the bud. Note, above all, that the strongest ambition of the immigrant is to become like us, to become incorporated with us; in order to this, if he is healthy and strong, he must participate in our affairs. ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... dropped several tones as he addressed the boy and they moved away together. "Mr. Lake and I are going out for a walk across the Fens. Petrie and Hammond will be there at ten. I'd like you to join 'em. Better nip ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... too curious, Miss Nan—it leads people into untold mischief. Curiosity was the sin of Eve, and it's best to nip it in the bud while you're young. Now let me brush out your hair, my darling, and ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... towns and places where they live. The place, town, or family where they live, must needs be horribly verminous, as it were, eaten up with vermin. Now, let the Lord Jesus, in the first place, cleanse these great breeders, and there will be given a nip to those swarms of sins that used to be committed in such places throughout the town, house, or family, where such sin-breeding ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... to do that, and he shows how mad he is to be taken away without a chance. Perhaps I'll sleep easier to-night, boys. It's an awful thing to lie awake there in a tent, and know a revengeful bear is trying to break his chain only twenty feet away, meaning to take a nip at you." ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... shambled in the rear, vainly exhorting everyone to caution: the slope was steep, one might break one's neck. What was wrong with these people, he wondered? They had become like young kittens after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felt a certain kittenishness sporting within him; but it was, like all his emotions, rather a theoretical feeling; it did not overmasteringly seek to express itself in a ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... expected her to, she went about and they began to close in upon each other. He could see that even with shortened canvas she was staggering drunkenly under the fierce impacts of the wind. For himself, it was nip-and-tuck, now, and no man in his normal sense would have risked a sixpence on the boat's chance to live until she crossed ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... earth. Oh, I don't say that if somebody had an axe handy and chopped your arm off at the shoulder an instant after you were struck on the hand, you mightn't have a chance to live; but it would take mighty quick work, and even then, it would be nip and tuck. Freylinghuisen thinks it is a new discovery. I don't. I think some one has dug up one of the old Medici formulae. Maybe it was placed in the secret drawer, so that there would never be any lack of ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... Like Cardinal Newman, for whose beautiful passage at the end of the Apologia she expresses such richly deserved admiration (ii. 387), she unites to the gift of unction and brotherly love a capacity for giving an extremely shrewd nip to a brother whom she does not love. Her passion for Thomas-a-Kempis did not prevent her, and there was no reason why it should, from dealing very faithfully with a friend, for instance (ii. 271); from describing Mr. Buckle as a conceited, ignorant man; or castigating Brougham ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley

... Creation, in finding Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the innermostest grit! Wheerfur—Theer!—I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all the way to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... came from round all the corners and under the buildings—spidery, thievish, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs, mongrel sheep- and cattle-dogs, vicious black and yellow dogs—that slip after you in the dark, nip your heels, and vanish without explaining—and yapping, yelping small fry. They kept at a respectable distance round the nasty yellow dog, for it was dangerous to go near him when he thought he had found ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... character of the heavier ice, a ship would be utterly helpless if she were ever caught fairly and squarely between two giant floes. In such a case there would be no escape for any structure which man could design or build. More than once a brief nip between two big blue floes has set the whole one hundred and eighty-four-foot length of the Roosevelt vibrating like a violin string. At other times, under the pressure on the cylinders of the by-pass before described, the vessel would rear herself ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... cats, trotted, with a tinkle of bells, through the barred sunshine and shadow of the fragrant pine and cork woods. The road, turning inland, climbed steadily, the air growing lighter and fresher as the elevation increased—a nip in it testifying that January was barely yet out. And that nip justified the wearing of certain afore-mentioned myrtle-green, fur-trimmed pelisse, upon which Damaris' minor affections were, at this period, much set. Though agreeably ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... he. "You must excuse me, but you look like a king on a lark! Walk into the parlor, sir, and sit down and make yourself comfortable. She's hurrying up supper to give you something warm after your wettin'. Would you like a little nip of whiskey, sir, to keep ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... him a drink from the brook, and then tethered him where he could nip the roadside grass. I opened my bag and explored the wonders of Mrs. Stanley's luncheon. I cannot describe the absolutely carefree feeling I had. Always at home, when I would have liked to stop at the roadside with a stranger, I felt the nudge of a conscience troubled with cows and corn, but here ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... that, ye blind ijjits!" yelled an Irish sergeant. "Ye'll be needin' them ladders prisintly!" Our three privates found themselves in the crowd surging towards the breastwork to the right of the gate. "Nip on my shoulders, Teddy lad," grunted McInnes, and Teddy nipped up and began hacking at the chevaux de frise with his axe. "That's av ut, bhoys," yelled the Irish sergeant again. "Lave them spoikes an' ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... determination to become a great Power at sea would arouse the suspicion and alarm of the English. Prince Buelow is perfectly frank about that. He says that the difficulty was to get on with the shipbuilding programme without giving Great Britain an opportunity to intervene by force and nip the enterprise in the bud. He attributes here to the British Government a policy which is all in the Bismarckian tradition. It was, in fact, a policy urged by some voices here, voices which, as is always the case, were carried to Germany and magnified by the mega-phone ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson

... three-cornered chair covered with stamped and gilded leather was drawn up to the fireside, the Squire's favourite seat on an autumn or winter afternoon. The chair was empty now, but, stretched at full length before the blazing logs, lay the Squire's chosen companion, Nip, a powerful liver-coloured pointer; and beside him in equally luxurious rest, reclined Argus, Vixen's mastiff. There was a story about Vixen and the mastiff, involving the only incident in that young lady's life the recollection whereof could make ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... of the other sort; hence, one of great and successful villany is a prize for the scribe. In the dearth of such, let us content ourselves with briefly noticing one of the multitude of abortive cubs, its villany nipped—as Nature is wont to nip it—in the promising bud of its tenderness. Many a flourishing young rogue suddenly disappears, and the world never knows how or why. But it shall know, if it will heed our one-story tale, how Chip Dartmouth of these parts was turned down here,—albeit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... will flock around her when Maggie takes her part. Bare, ugly rooms will be the rage; poverty will be the height of the fashion, and it will be considered wrong even to go in for the recognized college recreations. Rosie, my love, we must nip this growing mischief ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... serious leaks were started in the ship, which had to be met by working the pumps and building false bulwarks in the hold; but by the exercise of every art known to sailors, she was kept afloat and tenable until June 11, 1881, when a fierce and unexpected nip broke her fairly in two, and she speedily sunk. There followed weeks and months of incessant and desperate struggling with sledge and boat against the forces of polar nature. The ship had sunk about 150 miles from what are known ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... hand descended upon the inspector's shoulder. "Shut up, you beastly old wretch—do you think all women are alike. Come, now, let us have another nip and get away. Mr. Harrington ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke

... Atlantic? Why was she here? Why was she not somewhere else? The thing puzzled, perplexed him. It would not let him alone. It fastened upon his brain. Somehow he felt that if he tried to drive it away, it might nip ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock

... horse and rode away, leading one of the mules, leaving Tom and I to follow at our leisure. I noticed that the two men eyed me rather sharply. They didn't know how I felt at being reduced to poverty, and they were ready to nip in the bud any move that I took to be even with them. I didn't feel very good over it, you may imagine, and when I got on my horse I couldn't resist an inclination to say a word ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... wanted an interpreter, and we came away north here. Nothing particular happened at first. We had a deal of squeezing an' bumping in the ice of course, but got little damage, till about six days back I think, or thereabouts, when we got a nip that seemed to me to cut the bottom clean out o' the big kayak, for when the ice eased off again it went straight to the bottom. We had only time to throw some provisions on the ice and jump out before it went ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... down-stairs, she tried each screen-door in turn, till she found one unlatched, and escaped into the black August night. Pitch-black to man's eyes, it was simply gray to her, and she glided through the disgusting shrubbery and flower-beds, took a final nip at that one little bush that had been an attractive spot in the garden, and boldly took her ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... to break the silence that followed. He asked me if I had any brandy on board. He said he felt he should like just a nip of brandy before going to bed. That is one of the chief charms of Jephson's stories: they always make you feel ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... the divil d'ye see 'em! Has anny wan av 'em been comin' aboard for a nip av grog? There ye go thinkin' wrong again, Jeb; ye make me lose me timper! Haven't we been sailin' right along in a sea as smooth as a lass's cheek, now comin' sivin days? W'y, me b'y, even this ould tub's too fast for 'em!" Tim yawned and rolled over on the deck, where they had been sitting ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... tuggings and shakings, but to leave her hands free she popped the ginger stick into her mouth like a cigarette, and was immediately distracted to gravity by important considerations. "What am I doing, eating ginger when I hate the stuff? I'll nip off the end I've been at and put it back for mother. She just loves it, dear knows why, the nasty hot thing. I'll have one of the pink ones. They've no great flavour, but ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... drew rein in front of the Brunswick Court-house, it was obvious to the least heedful that something unusual was astir. Although the snow lay deep in front of the building and a keen nip was in the air, the larger part of the male population of the village was gathered on the green. Despite the chill, some sat upon the steps of the building, others bestowed themselves on the stocks in front of it, and still more stood about in groups, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... and colder,—and soon, when the chill nip of winter began to make itself felt in grim damp earnest, the whole county woke up from the pleasant indolence into which the long bright summer had steeped it, and responded animatedly to the one pulse of vitality ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... them. In this fight all my dogs did was to assail each bear in front and rear. While the dog in front kept up a vigorous barking as close to his nose as it was safe to venture, the dog in the rear, watching his opportunity, sprang in and gave him a severe nip in the tender spot in his hind leg. This, of course, could not be put up with, and so the bear, still holding on to his pig, quickly whirled around to repel this second assailant. The instant he did so the clever dog that had been in front, ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... had intended to add further arguments, the sheik saw fit to nip them in the bud; for there were some men in the council-room who did not know as much as Hassan Ah. Any free man may speak in ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... one side, limped a score or more of foot-sore, yoke-galled, skeleton oxen, that ever paused to nip at the occasional tufts of withered grass, and that ever were prodded on by the tired-faced youths who herded them. Sometimes one or another of these oxen would pause and low, and such lowing seemed as ominous as all ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... making them paupers. And Mr. Gabriel Carnine, Esquire, having the aroma of one large morning's drink on my breath emboldens me to say, that if you rich men will do your part in giving, the Lord will manage to keep His side of the traces from scraping on the wheel. And if I had one more good nip, I'd say, which Heaven forbid, that you fellows are asking more of the Lord by expecting Him to save your shrivelled selfish little souls from hell-fire because of your squeeze-penny charities, than you would be asking ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... always felt, he once said in explanation, as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a delicate edition de luxe was a lesson in tenderness. For this big man who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... men. He was depressed and gloomy, although his grades for the first term had been respectable. Nothing seemed very much worth while, not even making his letter on the track. He was gradually taking to cigarettes, and he had even had a nip or two out of a flask that Carl had brought to the room. He had read the "Rubaiyat," and it made a great impression on him. He and Carl often discussed the poem, and more and more Hugh was beginning to believe in Omar's philosophy. ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... of hurting my feelings," he said. "To some extent I do enjoy Miss Austin's patronage, but I know my drawbacks and don't cherish any foolish hopes. If I did, I believe she'd tactfully nip ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... But Nip, the one who was at the end, did try so hard to pull, that, all at once, snap! he had bit off the end of ...
— The First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... and are called neap tides. The word spring in this connection has no reference to the season of the year; except that both words probably represent the same idea of energetic uprising or upspringing, while the word neap comes from nip, and means pinched, ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... the drought at other times affects it, particularly the aquatic varieties. There is a use to which the rice is applied here, which was new to us, namely, as a substitute for razors; by using two grains of it between the fingers, they nip the beard, or extract it from the chin ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... little slap at me! That is never wanting. [offers a cup to Martinel.] You will take a small cup, won't you, M. Martinel, and a nip of old brandy with it? I know your tastes. We will take good ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... been playing with the Clown and just dropped him on the Elephant's back," said Mrs. Dunn. Nip was Archie's dog, a great big fellow, but very kind and good, and especially fond of children. He was called Nip because he used to playfully nip, or pretend to bite, cats. He never ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope

... thread the mazes of London society, and for the great body of the disinherited, the vast majority of the Anglo-Saxon public. Mr. Du Maurier's representation is the thing represented. Is the effect of it to nip in the bud any remote yearning for personal participation? I feel tempted to say yes, when I think of the follies, the flatnesses, the affectations and stupidities that his teeming pencil has made vivid. But that vision immediately merges itself in another—a ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... and lie down on the floors of their huts. Turning about, or getting up for water or tobacco, or perhaps to put fuel on the fire, they unluckily tread on a snake, or during sleep they roll over on one. The snake gives them a nip, and scuttles off. They have not seen what sort of snake it is, but their imagination conjures up the very worst. After the first outcry, when the whole house is alarmed, the man sits down firmly possessed by the idea that he is mortally bitten. Gradually his ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... curious fact how much climate has to do with love-making. In our cold country the progress is lamentably slow. Fogs, east winds, sleet, storms, and cutting March weather nip many a budding flirtation; whereas warm, sunny days and bright moonlight nights, with genial air and balmy zephyrs, open the heart like the cup of a camelia, and let us drink ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... which has been flowing northwest for thirty miles, takes a sudden sweep to the southwest, and thenceforward we have a rapid current. However, we need still to ply our blades, for there is a stiff head-wind, with an eager nip in it, to escape which we seek the lee as often as may be, and bask in the undisturbed sunlight. Right glad we were, at luncheon-time, to find a sheltered nook amidst a heap of boulders on the Kentucky shore, and to sit on the sun-warmed sand and drink hot tea by the side of a camp-fire, ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... The pupils nip off the point of the cave and taste the nectar (honey), and thus learn why the insects visit the flowers. They next trace the course of the coloured lines on the corolla and find that they all point ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... to whom time has left nothing but gums. There were also the intermediate or half-toothed sorts, probably devised by the middle-natured squires, or those under the influence of their wives: two inches of mercy, two inches of cruelty, two inches of mere nip, two inches of probe, and so on, through the whole extent of the jaws. There were also, as a class apart, the bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... the neck of his cow pony, which reached round playfully and pretended to nip his leg. They understood each other, and were now making the best of a very unpleasant situation. Since morning they had been lost on the desert. The heat of midday had found them plowing over sandy wastes. The declining sun ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... longer. She simply wouldn't puritanize. The nearest he ever got her to saying 'good' was when she said it with only one 'o,' and then as prefix to 'dammit.' So he decided the only way to reform her was to murder her. She managed to nip a piece out of his hand while he was doing it, however, and he's had the hump all day because he fell from grace and said something he'd oughtn't to. Yes, sir; we're a queer mess of Puritans. Look at us. Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... grows by the bridge, reaches the height of the parapet, and then, when this takes place, the Spirit shall have power to regain his liberty. To prevent this tree from growing, the school children, even to this day, nip the upper branches, and thus retard its upward growth. Mr. Roberts received the story I have given, from the old Parish Clerk, John Jones the weaver, who died a few ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... set honey and wine in the winter, lest they should feel the nip of the cold too keenly; and bread for the birds, that they all, but especially "my brother Lark," should have joy of Christmastide, and at Rieti a brood of redbreasts were the guests of the house and raided the tables ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... Bang! another one. Bang—bang, and I bagged two. Well, it was nip and tuck with us, and I knew it. If I spent the eleventh shot without convincing these people, the twelfth man would kill me, sure. And so I never did feel so happy as I did when my ninth downed its ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... this country in other terms; this is how I have seen it. In some early chapter in this heap I compared all our present colour and abundance to October foliage before the frosts nip down the leaves. That I still feel was a good image. Perhaps I see wrongly. It may be I see decay all about me because I am, in a sense, decay. To others it may be a scene of achievement and construction radiant with hope. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... his chances and came to the conclusion that he could swoop down, nip Mrs Gummidge, and get back to his bust of Pallas without being caught. He tried it, but his master was too quick for him, and foiled, he lay sullenly in Gethryn's hands, his two long claws projecting helplessly between the brown fists ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... was for a moment more awe inspiring than what had gone first; but before Cherry had more time than sufficed to nip Cuthbert hard by the hand, they heard the old woman's voice, in an accent of stern command, uttering ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... doctor assures me that with mother's good constitution, and the absence of any hereditary predisposition to this sort of thing, we've only to give her the ten or twelve months of rest and reenforcement—the winter in New Mexico, the summer in Colorado—to nip the whole thing in the bud. I believe him, and you must believe him—and me. More than all, you must not show the slightest change of front to her. She knows it all, but she doesn't want you to know. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... the King of Gee-Whiz was a deucedly good sort. He'd take a nip now and again, of course. The only thing he had to drink was palm wine, which he got by chopping a notch in a tree and catching the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... attending of it all the felicities of this life, and no bitterness, shame, or disgrace mixed with it, yet one hour in Hell will spoil all. O! this Hell, Hell-fire, Damnation in Hell, it is such an inconceivable punishment, that were it but throughly believed, it would nip this sin, with others, in the head. But here is the mischief, those that give up themselves to these things, do so harden themselves in Unbelief and Atheism about the things, the punishments that God hath threatned to inflict upon the committers of them, that at last they arrive ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... my lads, and work the crater stuff out of your elbows, and the first lieutenant will see us all so sober, and so wet in the bargain, and think we're all so dry, that perhaps he'll be after giving us a raw nip when ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs and leaves came sailing down. It was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded. Many of the men were constantly dodging and ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... dear, sweet girl, and I am going to nip this nonsense in the bud," Miss Reynolds observed to herself on the way upstairs, where, in the main hall and parlors, the students usually spent an hour, socially, after the evening meal. But as she presented her charge, here and there, ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... us knew it until it was too late— that our chief mate had rather too strong a liking for rum; not that he was exactly what you might call a drunkard, you know, but he kept a bottle in his cabin, and was in the habit of taking a nip just whenever he felt like it, especially at night time; and on this particular night that I'm talking about he must have taken a nip too many, for when he came on deck at midnight to keep the middle watch he hadn't been up above an hour before he coiled ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... answered very shortly, merely stating my intention of coming to Billsbury on the 16th, in order to interview the Committee. I must nip all this in the bud, or chuck ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various

... far back from the street, and next to it was a deep, vacant lot at the very rear of which Job was aimlessly wandering about, pausing now and then to nip at the tender green blades that were pushing their way up through the ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... calkelate to drive stage more than a year or two longer," Sam said to Mrs. Page, confidentially, on the return from their last trip together to Piney-woods Station. "I've got a little place down in Amador, and an interest in the Nip-and-tuck gold-mine, besides a few hundreds in bank. I've a notion to settle down some day, in a cottage with vines over the porch, with a little woman to tend the ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... y'r old peaks have a nip in the air at three in the mornin'!" Matthews came down to the raft chaffing his hands. "That's a job worthy a woodsman," he observed, holding the halter reins while the Ranger got ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... find a story which runs thus:—"Judge B., of New Haven, is a talented lawyer and a great wag. He has a son, Sam, a graceless wight, witty, and, like his father fond of mint juleps and other palatable "fluids." The father and son were on a visit to Niagara Falls. Each was anxious to "take a nip," but (one for example, and the other in dread of hurting the old man's feelings) equally unwilling to drink in the presence of the other. "Sam," said the Judge, "I'll take a short walk—be back shortly." "All right," replied Sam, and after seeing the old gentleman safely around the corner, he ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... is to have a failure of the crops, but in the spiritual world no such failure is possible. Wet soil may rot the seed, or frost may nip the early buds, or the weather may prove too wet or too dry to bring the crops to maturity, but none of these things occur to prevent the harvest of one's actions. The Bible tells us that God will render to ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... "though 'Surgeon' would perhaps be the mot juste"; and thus at last Hogarth donned cap-and-tassel, though not Frankl's—a livery which drew from Harris the reflection: "Sweet beauty!—in his mortarboard". The nip upon the brow of the college-cap peak resembled the nip of the Scotch prison-cap, awaking memories: ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... the gaming-house at Monaco, that Armida's garden of the nineteenth century. It is the sunniest and most sheltered spot of all the coast. Long ago Lucan said of Monaco, 'Non Corus in illum jus habet aut Zephyrus;' winter never comes to nip its tangled cactuses, and aloes, and geraniums. The air swoons with the scent of lemon-groves; tall palm-trees wave their graceful branches by the shore; music of the softest and the loudest swells from the palace; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... school. Our country is a glory to the eye when mid-summer and autumn are there, but think of the harsh winter months with their torrents of driving rain, their whirlwinds of hail and sleet and the icy nip of the blasts that blow ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... have been doing, and we seldom now have to think of discipline. If we see signs of carelessness, we nip them in the bud. One must discriminate between a moment's thoughtlessness in a young person and the beginning of a wrong library habit. That may not seem clearly put. A firm, steady glance in his direction and the way he takes it will usually ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... Jack, "for it gets a man in the wind; but I won't tell her so; and," continued he, "you don't mind a raw nip, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... thereby so to stun and bewilder him that the terrier could rush in and crush him before he recovered his wits. But I had miscalculated; the blow did indeed stun and confuse him, but he was still too quick for the dog, and had him by the lip like an electric trap. Nip lifted up his head and swung the weasel violently about in the air, trying to shake him off, uttering a cry of rage and pain, but did not succeed in loosening the animal's hold for some moments. When he had done so, and attempted to seize him a second time, the weasel was first ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... when, perhaps, we may not know anything about it. At all events, we are completely ignorant of the nature of the plot and the names of the ringleaders. Let us double the sentries, and quietly get the men under arms. Let Miss Sarah do what she pleases, and when the mutiny breaks out, we will nip it in the bud; clap all the villains we get in irons, and hand them over to the authorities in Hobart Town. I am not a cruel man, sir, but we have got a cargo of wild beasts aboard, and we ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... Consarn it, don't you know the town's full of highwaymen? It'd be just like you to sleep here like a log and let 'em come in an' nip my watch an' purse right out o' your own bed. I wouldn't 'a' been a bit surprised to find 'em gone—an' you chloryformed and ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... revolved, as creakily as ever, at the Capital. Blobb, of Oregon, made machine speeches to the sleepy House, but neither he, nor they, noted the darkening atmosphere without. Senator Jenks took his half-hourly "nip" with laudable punctuality, thereafter rising eloquent to call Mr. President's attention to that little bill; and all the while that huge engine, the lobby, steadily pumped away in the political basement, sending streams of hot ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... promptly, "and thirsty, probably, and proud—awfully proud." She turned upon Helen suddenly. "Helen Chase Adams, do you know I might have been down there with the subs. Katherine told me this morning that it was nip and tuck between Marie Austin and me. If I'd tried harder—played an inch better—think of it, Helen, I might have been ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... which Miss Whichello saw and heard with supreme contempt. Mr Cargrim, by his late tittle-tattling conversation, had fallen in her good opinion; and she was not going to let him off without a sharp rebuke for his unfounded chatter. Cutting short his murmurs, she proceeded to nip in the bud any further reports he or Mrs Pansey might spread in connection with the murder, by explaining much ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... all right. I wake any time, and I know what 'nip' means. We must not get caught napping if ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... kept On the best corn and hay That in fields could be grown, Or in any meadows gay; But now, alas! it's not so, - There's no such food at all! I'm forced to nip the short grass That grows beneath your wall. Poor old ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... I forget the anxious faces which greeted our arrival at the French port. "Nip up to the trenches," said O.C. megaphone, "and save the situation if you can." Up to the trenches we nipped, covering the distance of sixty miles in less than three weeks. There was no doubt about our willingness and ability to do as we were told; our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various

... a pleasant run to St. Gilles, though there was a shrewish nip in the wind which made me hope that Lady Turnour's mind was not running ahead to the mountains and gorges in front of her, not far away by days or miles now. I wanted her to get tangled up in them before she had time to think ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... several sheets again, critically, carefully this time. There should be no danger here, she said. He knew what she meant—that she counted on his being able to nip the whole scheme in the bud. He shook his head thoughtfully. That might be true; he might be able to do that, probably would, for it was still very early; but if not—what then? He glanced out of the window—they were just turning into Riverside ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... life long. The bravest old soldier, the most daring young reprobate, is incapable of forgetting them all—the masks, the bogies, ogres, hobgoblins, witches, and wizards, the things that bite and scratch, that nip and tear, that pinch and crunch, the thousand and one imaginary monsters of the mother, the nurse, or the servant, have had their effect; and hundreds of generations have worked to denaturalize the brains of children. Perhaps no animal, not even those most susceptible ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... over-worked, and requires repose; or his bowels are loaded, and Nature wishes to take time to use up the old material;—there might be fever lurking in his system; Nature stops the supplies, and thus endeavours, by not giving it food to work with, to nip it in the bud;—there might be inflammation; food would then be improper, as it would only add fuel to the fire; let, therefore, the cause be either an overworked stomach, over-loaded bowels, fever, or inflammation, food would be injurious. Kind Nature ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... the fall if I had a good chance, to sell, so I wrote and made him an offer. But his answer never came till last night. A nurse at the hospital in Washington wrote for him; he had been laid up with a case of blood-poison all winter, and it started from a nip that blame' colt gave him on the trip from Kittitas. He refused my price because, seeing's the team wasn't safe for a full-sized man to drive, it went against his conscience to let them go ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... country). . . One kind is very warlike—the 'bull-dog': sentinels stand on the watch, outside the nest, and in case of attack disappear for a moment and return with a whole army of the red-headed monsters, and should they nip you, will give you a remembrance of their ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... and went out to an A B C shop with Booty or some other man. Sometimes the other man had ideas, views of life and so forth, that interested Ransome; if he hadn't, at any rate he was a man. That is to say, he didn't sulk or nag or snap at you; or nip the words out of your mouth and twist them; he wasn't perverse; he didn't do things that passed your comprehension, and he let you be. For Ransome the world of men brought respite. Even at home, in that world of women, of one woman, when things (he meant the one woman) were too ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... replied the voice, and its owner—a bearded six-footer—emerged from the bushes, and stroked Tipsie's nose with the freedom of an old acquaintance. "We hain't had a nip sence last night, an' thar' ain't a cracker or a handful of flour in the shanty. The old ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... did say that Scotland was a long way off, and he said yes, that had occurred to him, but that we must make sacrifices for Willie's good. He was very brave and cheerful about it. Well, I mustn't stay. There's quite a nip in the air, and Rammikins will get a nasty cold in his precious little button of a nose if I don't walk him about. Say 'Bye-bye' ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... a salamander will nip you; then you'll go loco," observed Gary, balancing another tennis ball in his right hand. "Give me a shot at you?" he added. "I feel as though I could throw it clean through you. You look soft as a ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... peaele her cherry lip; Her sorrow, not a-zeed by eyes, Wer lik' the mildew, that do nip A bud by darksome midnight skies. The day mid come, the zun mid rise, But there's noo hope o' day nor zun; The storm ha' blow'd, the harm's a-done, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome," said he. "Step in, sir. Keep clear of the badger; for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty, would you take a nip at the gentleman?" This to a stoat which thrust its wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. "Don't mind that, sir: it's only a slow-worm. It hain't got no fangs, so I gives it the run o' the room, for it keeps the bettles down. You must not mind my bein' just ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... genius for war? Hold it up to your right-hand man's mouth, to be sure, and let him nip it off for ye. Well, what have you to say, Private Tremlett? Don't ye ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... green rose of just the same shape as the common rose, only a deep genuine green. It had a very odd look. Many of our green-house plants grow to be extremely large here, as there is no chilling wind or snow to nip ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... twenty-five years ago when they was first in the Legislatur' together. A man told me that they was both admitted to practice in the S'preme Court in '39, on the same day, sir. Then you know they was nip an' tuck after the same young lady. Abe got her. They've been in Congress together, the Little Giant in the Senate, and now, here they be in the greatest set of debates the people of this state ever heard; Young man, the hand ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... tarsier to Scott. It was a very pretty and curious little creature, belonging to the monkey tribe. It had very large eyes, and was certainly very cunning. It appeared to be playful, but his new owner got a nip from its teeth which warned him to be careful. The most curious part of the animal was its legs, the hind ones being ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... horse, and let him out for all that was in him. The squire followed suit and the deacon. The road was wide and the snow was worn down smooth. The track couldn't have been in better condition. The Hopkins colors were not five rods behind the Hawkins colors as they got away. For half a mile it was nip and tuck, the deacon encouraging his horse and the widow encouraging the deacon, and then the squire began creeping up. The deacon's horse was a good one, but he was not accustomed to hauling freight in a race. A half-mile ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... the interest of the community. Then the pump was parsimonious, and all the women being impatient to get their allowance and go, it was needful that someone in authority should stand by to decide questions of disputed priority, and to nip quarrels in the bud which might otherwise lead to a fight. Poor man! how those women worried him every morning with their badinage, and how glad he was to chain up the pump-handle and ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... is very seasonable for the time of year, is it not? A nice nip in the air, as you might say; thoroughly healthy for those at liberty to enjoy it al fresco. I assure you the opportunity is not being wasted out here; all the best people are out-of-doors all the time. For myself, with thirty ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various

... she said, 'it hasn't been stolen. You see it's not been cut off, and that's what very clever thieves do sometimes. They nip off a jewel in a crowd, quite noiselessly and in half a second, I've been told. No, Mrs. Warwick, it's dropped off, and by advertising and offering a good reward you may very likely get it back. ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... Tom was put in as pitcher on the scrub, while Dare Phelps occupied the box for the regular nine. For the first six innings, it was a nip-and-tuck battle between the two pitchers. But from that time on, Dare Phelps seemed to go to pieces, while Tom struck out man after man. As a result, the score at the end of the game stood 4 to 10 in favor ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield



Words linked to "Nip" :   clipping, squeeze, coolness, chomp, spice, piquantness, slang, cold, gustatory perception, nip off, lingo, coldness, twinge, pinch, clip, cant, frigidness, low temperature, vanilla, savor, spicery, small indefinite amount, nip and tuck, depreciation, cut, snip, gustatory sensation, taste sensation, argot, tweak, nipper, small indefinite quantity, bite, piquance, flavour, nippy, Jap, taste perception, spiciness, shot, seize with teeth, frigidity, relish, grip, vernacular, piquancy, Nipponese, snip off, smack, lemon, tang, twitch, chilliness, patois, goose, tanginess, tweet, jargon



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