clip
Pluralclips
Pluralclips
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4To cut something, especially with scissors or shears rather than a knife.
Barbers clip hair with sharp shears rather than a blade.
She clipped the wilted blooms from the rose bush.
Similarcut, trim, snip, prune, shear
Note
The shearing word still carries the cut: Old Norse klippa meant 'to clip, cut the hair, shear sheep'. Its tools are scissors and shears, so it suits trimming hair, hedges or flowers better than carving. With out, it lifts a piece from a page, as in clipping a coupon out of a newspaper. Macaulay's History of England uses it grimly, of a man sentenced to have his ears clipped.
- 5A frame holding several rounds of ammunition, designed to be inserted into a firearm's internal magazine for rapid reloading.
The marksman pressed a clip of five rounds into the magazine.
Each clip held the cartridges in a single row.
Similarcharger
Note
Here the military vocabulary draws a line that everyday speech blurs. The clip is only the frame that holds cartridges in a row, and it charges a magazine built into the weapon. A removable box that carries its own feed spring is a different device, the detachable magazine sense, though casual usage often calls that a clip too. A clip is loaded and pressed home, and the fixed magazine then does the feeding.
- 6To cut short or reduce something; to curtail it.
Budget cuts clipped the program's funding mid-year.
Editors often clip long articles to fit the page.
Similarcut, trim, reduce, curtail, shorten
Note
Here the verb means shortening rather than severing. In King Lear, Shakespeare writes 'No more nor clipped', describing a report neither padded nor trimmed. Jonathan Swift complained in 1712 that Londoners clip their words one way about the Court and another in the City. That use survives in clipped speech, meaning talk that is short, precise and sometimes curt.
- 7
- 8
- 9To grip something tightly.
He clipped the rope with both fists as he was pulled forward.
Nervous passengers clip the armrests hard every time the plane drops.
Similargrip, clutch, grasp, clasp, grab
Oppositerelease
Note
Two words share this spelling, and the holding one is native: Old English clyppan, 'to hug, embrace, cherish, clasp', from a root meaning 'lump, clump, clamp'. Gripping, fastening and embracing all descend from it. The clip of scissors and shears was borrowed separately from Old Norse klippa, so the cutting verb is a namesake, not a relative.
- 10A speed or rate of movement, usually understood as a fast one.
Sales grew at a healthy clip through the summer.
She set off down the trail at a brisk clip.
Note
Speed usually travels inside a frame here: at a ... clip, with an adjective doing the measuring, as in a pretty good clip or a fair clip. The adjectives tend to be modest, yet the pace they describe is quick. Someone walking at a fair clip can leave a companion out of breath trying to keep up.
- 11A detachable magazine of a firearm, holding rounds and inserted as a single unit.
The shooter ejected the empty clip and slapped in a fresh one.
Each clip held fifteen rounds.
Similarmagazine
Note
Everyday speech calls a detachable magazine a clip, and the usage is firmly colloquial. In technical or military writing, magazine is the safer word, because the specialist's clip names something else: the frame that loads a magazine, not the box that feeds the gun. Phrases such as empty the clip belong to the casual register.
- 12A short piece of audio taken from a longer recording.
The podcast opened with a clip from an old interview.
The DJ dropped a quick clip of laughter between tracks.
Similarsnippet, bit, cutting, piece
Note
Two routes lead to the same short piece of sound. Clip may be audio clip with the first word dropped, or it may be a direct clipping of audio. Either way, sound clip, audio clip and sound bite are its close neighbors, and the bare word clip usually relies on context to show that sound rather than video is meant.
- 13
- 14
- 15A blow with the hand, especially a light one delivered to the side of the head.
She threatened a clip round the ear if they kept shouting.
A sharp clip on the back of the head silenced him.
Similarcuff, clout, smack, slap
Note
The set phrase is a clip round the ear, the classic open-handed correction, though the preposition can shift. Paul Vautin's Turn It Up! (1995) has 'the odd clip under the ear'. The blow is usually given or got: give him a clip, I got the odd clip. It is informal, at home in reminiscence and scolding.
- 16A piece that has been cut, trimmed, or snipped away from a larger whole.
The editor saved a clip from the manuscript for later reference.
Each clip of trimmed hedge went straight into the compost bin.
Similarpiece, fragment, scrap, bit, snippet
Note
A broad sense that covers whatever the shears or scissors take off, and it works as both a count noun and a mass noun. A clip can be a single piece, close to a snippet or cutting. Clip can also be the material itself, as when Gwen White's Antique Toys And Their Background (1971) says early teddy bears were made of the clip of angora goats. That mass use sits close to a single shearing's yield.
- 17In football, to make an illegal tackle by throwing the body across the back of an opponent's legs or by hitting them from behind below the waist.
Linemen who clip opponents risk a fifteen-yard penalty.
He was ejected after clipping the cornerback during the punt return.
Note
The foul is defined by direction and target: contact from behind, below the waist, by a player moving up on an opponent. Two exceptions make the same contact legal. One is when the player hit is the runner. The other is when the contact happens in close line play. Hitting the ball carrier from behind is therefore tackling, not clipping.
- 18To kill someone deliberately, as by assassination or a planned hit.
Rival crews paid a hitman to clip their competition.
They clipped him on the courthouse steps in broad daylight.
Similarwhack
Note
Underworld slang for a deliberate killing, and a close relative of whack. It belongs to the talk of crime drama. In Peter McKenna's Kin (2021), a character recalls the time 'they tried to clip me at the cafe'. The word carries that world's flat, offhand treatment of murder, so outside dialogue it can sound borrowed.
- 19To take or grab something stealthily, slipping it away before anyone notices.
Pickpockets will clip your phone the moment you're distracted.
She clipped a lipstick from the display and dropped it in her bag.
Similarsteal, swipe, pinch, nick, lift
Note
Its object is the thing taken, which sets it apart from the swindling sense, whose object is the person cheated. A pickpocket clips a wallet from a tourist, while a crooked dealer clips the tourist. The weight falls on speed and stealth, a grab nobody notices. The word is slang, at home in casual talk of petty theft rather than in a formal report.
- 20To cheat, swindle, or fleece someone, typically by overcharging or trickery.
Crooked dealers clip unwary buyers with hidden fees.
The con artist clipped several retirees out of their savings.
Similarcheat, swindle, fleece, con
Note
The shearing family again, this time aimed at people. Its plain synonym fleece paints the same picture of a victim stripped like a sheep. The object is the person cheated, so you clip a customer, not the cash. The word stays slang; in formal writing, cheat or swindle carries the meaning without the wink.
- 21In computer graphics, to move through or into a rendered object or barrier.
Poorly tested games let avatars clip through walls and ceilings.
The character clipped into the rock and the camera went black.
Note
Usually a glitch, sometimes a deliberate trick: speedruns depend on clipping through walls. The verb works in both constructions. Without an object, the mover clips through or into something. With an object, either the barrier takes that role (the camera keeps clipping that ceiling) or the mover does (I clipped my avatar through the barrier).
- 22To cut off a signal at a fixed maximum level, removing any portion that exceeds it.
Overdriven amplifiers clip the waveform and add harsh distortion.
The recording clipped during the loudest passage of the symphony.
Note
Clipping flattens a signal against a limit, so everything beyond it is lost rather than reduced. It is not only an audio fault. John Jackman's Lighting for Digital Video and Television (2004) describes a picture with clipped whites and blacks, losing detail at both the bright and the dark extremes. Engineers also use the verb without an object, as in 'the recording clipped'.
- 23In computer graphics, to skip rendering any part of a model or scene that is hidden from view, saving processing resources.
Efficient renderers clip geometry that falls outside the camera's view.
The engine clips surfaces blocked by closer objects.
Note
This is a renderer's economy: what cannot be seen is never drawn. The subject is the software and the object is geometry, so the engine clips the hidden parts of a scene. Gamers use the same verb for moving through solid objects, where clipping is a fault rather than a saving.
- 24The entire quantity of wool obtained from shearing a single sheep one time.
The farmer weighed the clip from each animal before bagging it.
A heavy fleece can make for a valuable clip.
Similarfleece
Note
Wool is the original clip: shearing is the cutting, and what comes off is the clip, weighed and bagged as one lot. The word is countable for the yield of a single shearing. It becomes uncountable when wool is spoken of in bulk. The season's whole crop is the same word on a larger scale.
- 25The entire crop of wool gathered from a flock over one shearing season.
The station shipped its entire clip to market in spring.
Drought reduced the season's clip by nearly a third.
- 26To treat an aneurysm surgically by closing it off with a small physical clip.
Neurosurgeons often clip a ruptured aneurysm to stop the bleeding.
She clipped the aneurysm during an emergency procedure.
Note
Surgical shorthand in which the verb names the tool: the surgeon clips an aneurysm by closing it off with a clip. The object is the aneurysm itself. Despite the cutting associations of the spelling, nothing is snipped away. The clip seals the aneurysm off, much as the gripping device holds things shut.
- 27To strike someone with the hand, typically delivering a quick, light blow.
His grandmother would clip him on the head whenever he swore.
The coach clipped the boy's shoulder to get his attention.
Similarcuff, smack, slap, swat
Note
A threat is its natural setting: I'll clip ye round the lugs, where lugs is a dialect word for ears. The blow is quick and open-handed, closer to a cuff than a punch. The verb reads as dialectal or informal, so it suits dialogue better than narration. The noun carries the familiar set phrase.
- 28To collect people's signatures, generally working from a clipboard.
Campaign workers fanned out to clip signatures before the deadline.
He clipped enough names in one weekend to qualify the petition.
Note
Canvassers' slang, built on the clipboard they carry rather than on any cutting or gripping. Its object is signatures or names. To an outsider, 'clipping signatures' can sound like trimming them, so in writing meant for a general audience, collect or gather signatures says the same thing without the puzzle.
- 29To hold someone closely in one's arms; to hug or embrace.
The lovers would clip each other beneath the old oak.
She clipped her returning sailor and wept with joy.
Note
One of two unrelated words spelled clip: this one goes back to Old English clyppan, 'to hug, embrace, cherish, clasp', while the cutting verb comes from Old Norse klippa. It keeps company with kissing, as in Cleland's 'toying, kissing, clipping' (1749) and Joyce's 'clip and kiss' in Ulysses (1922). Because it is archaic, it is safest in verse or pastiche. In plain prose 'she clipped him' reads as a blow.
- 30A projecting flange on the upper edge of a horseshoe, turned up to embrace the lower part of the hoof.
The blacksmith drew a clip at the toe to hold the shoe steady.
A side clip keeps the shoe from shifting on a heavy horse.
Note
A farrier's word in which the old 'embrace' meaning still shows: the flange is turned up to clasp the hoof. William Youatt's On the Structure and the Diseases of the Horse names clips by where they sit. The toe-clip embraces the toe of the crust, and the heel-clips sit at the heels of the side bars. Both are hyphenated.
- 31A close hug, holding someone tightly in the arms.
- 32A hooked pole used to pull a caught fish, especially a salmon, out of the water.
- 33The general state or appearance that something or someone is in.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of clip apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
From Middle English clippen, from Old English clyppan ("to hug, embrace, cherish, clasp"), going back through Proto-Germanic to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "lump, clump, clamp." It is related to Old Frisian kleppa ("to hug, embrace") and Middle High German klimpfen ("to squeeze").
From Middle English clippen, from Old Norse klippa ("to clip, cut the hair, shear sheep"). It is related to Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian klippa/klippe ("to clip").