hips

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of hip.

   He stood with both hands on his hips, surveying the wreckage.

   The tailor measured around her hips before cutting the fabric.

   Note

   One spelling carries the plural of several unrelated nouns: the hips of the body, the hips of a roof where two sloping planes meet, and the hips of a rose, which are its fruit. Context usually settles which is meant: hands on the hips, tiles along the hips, rose hips on the bush. The same spelling also serves the present-tense verb, so a bare hips can be either noun or verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of hip.

   The veteran reporter hips junior staff to sources no one else can reach.

   Whenever trouble brews, she quietly hips the manager to it.

   Note

   Most of the verbs behind this form are physical. A wrestler hips an opponent by throwing him over the hip, and a builder hips a roof by giving it sloping angles. The slang meaning, to inform, is transitive and takes the person as its object, with the news following after to: she hips the manager to it. Use it as slang only, never in formal writing.

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