nipping

English

Verb

nipping

1. present participle and gerund of nip

Noun

nipping (plural nippings)

1. The act or sensation of giving a nip.
   • 1789, Memoirs of the Medical Society of London:

     Being, however, satisfied as to the position, I withdrew my hand, the pains still growing less frequent and weaker, but she lamented greatly the nippings and pinchings in her belly, which rather increased as the true labour pains decreased.

   • 1953 November, 'Erca', “Ticket frauds in the East”, in Railway Magazine, page 779:

     Tickets are supposed to be nipped when passengers enter a platform, and if this could always be done the fraud could hardly take place; but the suburban rush is so great that the nipping of all tickets is impossible and a large number of unnipped tickets are always collected at destination.

   • 1999, Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life:

     Elephants may seem clumsy, but they not only are highly sophisticated in courtship, with large repertoires of provocative gestures, proddings, nippings and subtle erotic teasings with the trunk, but sometimes they complete actual copulation within 18 seconds.