English
nipper
see also: Nipper
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈnɪpə(ɹ)/
Noun

nipper (plural nippers)

  1. One who, or that which, nips.
  2. (usually, in the plural) Any of various devices (as pincers) for nipping.
  3. (slang) A child.
    • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 193. ISBN 0-451-51218-9
      Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?
  4. (AU) A child aged from 5 to 13 in the Australian surf life-saving clubs.
    • ,
      Of our movement’s 153,000 members, over 58,500 are nippers (5-13 years). This equates to nearly 40% of our total membership and shows just how significant the junior movement is within surf lifesaving.
    • [https://web.archive.org/web/20120321105500/http://sls.com.au/content/nipper-numbers-exceed-60000]
      The Nippers program, for children aged five to thirteen, promotes water safety skills and confidence in a safe beach environment
    • 2003 Some Like It Hot: The Beach As a Cultural Dimension
      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.
    • 2008, Tania Cassidy, Robyn L. Jones, Paul Potrac, Understanding Sports Coaching: The Social, Cultural and Pedagogical Foundations of Coaching Practice
      It is the first day of training for a group of ten 'little nippers' (novice surf life-savers). An assortment of children expectantly hover in the clubhouse.
    • 2009, Didgeridoos and Didgeridon'ts: A Brit 's Guide to Moving Your Life Down Under
      Every club around Australia offers a Nippers programme. Nippers is open to children from the age of 5 through to 13 years old […]
  5. (historical) A boy working as a navvies' assistant.
  6. (Canada, slang, Newfoundland) A mosquito.
  7. One of four foreteeth in a horse.
  8. (obsolete) A satirist.
    • […] ready backbiters, sore nippers, and spiteful reporters privily of good men.
  9. (obsolete, slang) A pickpocket; a young or petty thief.
  10. A fish, the cunner.
  11. A European crab (Polybius henslowii).
  12. The claws of a crab or lobster.
  13. A young bluefish.
  14. (dated) A machine used by a ticket inspector to stamp passengers' tickets.
    • 1908, Transport World (volume 24, page 319)
      The railway ticket nipper has the identification number of the conductor on it […]
  15. One of a pair of automatically locking handcuffs.
Synonyms Translations
  • Italian: pinza
  • Russian: карапуз
  • Spanish: mico (colloquial)
Verb

nipper (nippers, present participle nippering; past and past participle nippered)

  1. (nautical, transitive) To seize (two ropes) together.
Nipper
Proper noun
  1. Surname


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