clip

• enPR: klĭp, IPA^(key): /klɪp/, [kl̥ʰɪp]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪp

From Middle English clippen, cleppen, clüppen, from Old English clyppan (“to hug, embrace, cherish, clasp”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *glemb-, *glembʰ- (“lump, clump, clod, clamp”). Cognate with Old Frisian kleppa, klippa (“to hug, embrace”), Middle High German klimpen, klimpfen (“to contract tightly, constrict, squeeze”).

clip (third-person singular simple present clips, present participle clipping, simple past and past participle clipped)

1. To grip tightly.
2. To fasten with a clip.

   Please clip the photos to the pages where they will go.

3. (archaic) To hug, embrace.
   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     What, fifty of my followers at a clap!

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards the main point, by toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my breasts, now round and plump, feeling that part of me I might call a furnace-mouth, from the prodigious intense heat his fiery touches had rekindled there, my young sportsman, embolden'd by every freedom he could wish, wantonly takes my hand, and carries it to that enormous machine of his

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 3]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     White thy fambles, red thy gan / And thy quarrons dainty is. / Couch a hogshead with me then. / In the darkmans clip and kiss.

4. (slang) To collect signatures, generally with the use of a clipboard.

clip (plural clips)

1. Something which clips or grasps; a device for attaching one object to another.

   Use this clip to attach the check to your tax form.

2. An unspecified, but normally understood as rapid, speed or pace.

   She reads at a pretty good clip.

   He was walking at a fair clip and I was out of breath trying to keep up.

3. (obsolete) An embrace.
   • c. 1580s, Philip Sidney, “Astrophel and Stella”, in [Mary Sidney], editor, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia […] [The New Arcadia], 3rd edition, London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1598, →OCLC, sonnet 8, page 521:

     But finding theſe North climes do coldly him embrace, / Not vſde to frozen clips, he ſtraue to find ſome part, / Where with most eaſe & warmth he might employ his art: […]

4. (military) A frame containing a number of rounds of ammunition which is intended to be inserted into an internal magazine of a firearm to allow for rapid reloading.
5. (military, colloquial) A removable magazine of a firearm.
6. A projecting flange on the upper edge of a horseshoe, turned up so as to embrace the lower part of the hoof; a toe clip or beak.
   • 1831-1850, William Youatt, On the Structure and the Diseases of the Horse

     The heel - clips are two clips at the heels of the side bars , which correspond to the toe - clip ; the latter embracing the toe of the crust , whilst the former embrace its heels

7. (fishing, UK, Scotland) A gaff or hook for landing the fish, as in salmon fishing.

• → Japanese: クリップ (kurippu)
• → Portuguese: clipe

From Middle English clippen, from Old Norse klippa (“to clip, cut the hair, shear sheep”). Cognate with Icelandic klippa (“to clip”), Swedish klippa (“to clip”), Danish klippe (“to clip”), Norwegian Bokmål klippe (“to clip”).

clip (third-person singular simple present clips, present participle clipping, simple past and past participle clipt or clipped)

1. To cut, especially with scissors or shears as opposed to a knife etc.

   She clipped my hair with her scissors.

   Please clip that coupon out of the newspaper.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 18, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     sentenced to have his ears clipped

2. To curtail; to cut short.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii]:

     All my reports go with the modest truth; / No more nor clipped, but so.

   • 1712 March 4 (date written; Gregorian calendar), J[onathan] Swift, A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue; […], 2nd edition, London: […] Benj[amin] Tooke, […], published 1712, →OCLC, page 23:

     Not only the ſeveral Towns and Countries^{[sic – meaning Counties]} of England, have a different way of pronouncing, but even here in London they clip their Words after one Manner about the Court, another in the City, and a third in the Suburbs; and in a few Years, it is probable, will all differ from themſelves, as Fancy or Faſhion ſhall direct: All which, reduced to Writing, would entirely confound Orthography.

3. (dialectal, informal) To strike with the hand.

   I’ll clip ye round the lugs!

4. To hit or strike, especially in passing.

   The car skidded off the road and clipped a lamppost.

5. (American football) To perform an illegal tackle, throwing the body across the back of an opponent's leg or hitting him from the back below the waist while moving up from behind unless the opponent is a runner or the action is in close line play.
6. (signal processing) To cut off a signal level at a certain maximum value.
   • 2004, John Jackman, Lighting for Digital Video and Television, page 25:

     The WFM display above shows a very contrasty picture with clipped whites and blacks.

7. (computer graphics) To discard (an occluded part of a model or scene) rather than waste resources on rendering it.
8. (computer graphics, video games, transitive, intransitive) To move (through or into) (a rendered object or barrier).

   The camera keeps clipping that ceiling.

   Clipping through walls is integral to the game's speedruns.

   Oh, no, I clipped my avatar through the barrier!

9. (slang) To assassinate; to bump off.

   Synonym: whack

   • 2021, Peter McKenna, 10:49 from the start, in Kin, season 1, episode 8, spoken by Michael Kinsella (Charlie Cox):

     It was after they tried to clip me at the cafe.

10. (slang, transitive) To cheat, swindle, or fleece.
11. (slang, transitive) to grab or take stealthily.
12. To make a clip; to cut a section of video from a film, broadcast, or other longer video.

    I clipped the moment they beat the world record live on stream.

13. (surgery, transitive) To treat (an aneurysm) by closing it off with a physical clip.

clip (countable and uncountable, plural clips)

1. Something which has been clipped from a larger whole:
   • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 161:

     Early [teddy] bears were made of the clip of angora goats.

   1. The product of a single shearing of sheep.
   2. A season's crop of wool.
   4. A section of video taken from a film, broadcast, or other longer video.

      Synonym: video clip

      The morning news today played a clip of last night's debate.

      The 100th episode of Seinfeld consisted of clips from previous episodes.

   6. A short piece of audio (shortened version of audio clip, or alternatively clipping of audio).

      Synonyms: audio clip, sound bite, sound clip

   7. A newspaper clipping.
2. An act of clipping, such as a haircut.

   I went into the salon to get a clip.

3. (uncountable, Geordie) The condition of something, its state.

   Deeky the clip of that aad wife ower thor!

4. (informal) A blow with the hand (often in the set phrase clip round the ear)

   Give him a clip round the ear!

• Frank Graham, editor (1987), “CLIP”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.
• National Football League (2007). Official Rules of the National Football League 2007. Triumph Books.

• ILPC

Borrowed from English clip.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈklip]

clip m (plural clips)

1. paper clip
2. hairclip

• “clip” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “clip”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024

Borrowed from English clip.

• IPA^(key): /klip/

• Audio:

  (file)

clip m (plural clips)

1. music video
2. clip-on (earring)

• vidéoclip

• “clip”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

clip (present analytic clipeann, future analytic clipfidh, verbal noun clipeadh, past participle clipthe)

1. (transitive) prick; tease, torment
2. (transitive) tire, wear, out

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “clip”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “clip”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “clip”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2024

Unadapted borrowing from English clip.

• IPA^(key): /ˈklip/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ip
• Hyphenation: clìp

clip m (invariable)

1. clip
2. paper clip

Borrowed from English clip.

• IPA^(key): /klip/

clip n (plural clipuri)

1. clip (video)

Borrowed from English clip.

• IPA^(key): /ˈklip/ [ˈklip]
• Rhymes: -ip
• Syllabification: clip

clip m (plural clips)

1. paper clip

   Synonym: sujetapapeles

2. clip (something which clips or grasps; a device for attaching one object to another.)

   pendientes de clip ― clip earrings

3. (firearms) clip (frame containing a number of bullets)

   Synonym: fragmento

• “clip”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10