tipping

Pluraltippings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The practice of giving a gratuity, usually a sum of money, in return for service.

   Tipping varies widely from one country to the next, both in amount and expectation.

   The restaurant added a service charge to discourage inconsistent tipping.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of tilting or inclining something, or of its being made to lean from an upright position.

   A sudden tipping of the trailer sent the cargo sliding to one end.

   Engineers studied the tipping of the tower to judge how close it was to collapse.

   Similartilting, leaning

   Note

   The countable use names single acts, and the most familiar of them is a greeting. Peter Andersson's Streetlife in Late Victorian London (2013) pairs hat-tippings with cap-doffings as ceremonial street courtesies. In that compound the tilt is small and social rather than mechanical, and the hyphenated plural sounds natural. When the noun names tilting as a process, it stays uncountable.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of tip.

   The crane is tipping the container onto the flatbed truck.

   Diners are tipping more generously this year than they did last year.

   Note

   The verb form carries tip's ergative split. Something can be tipping on its own, as in the boat is tipping. Someone can also be tipping it, as in the crane is tipping the container. As a gerund it shares its spelling with the nouns for gratuities, tilting and dumping. The tipping of the trailer and tipping the trailer differ in grammar, not in form: one is a noun with of, the other a verb taking an object.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The dumping of trash or waste, especially the unloading of it at a particular site.

   Unauthorized tipping at the abandoned quarry created a serious health hazard.

   A new gate was installed at the old yard to stop tipping after dark.

   Similardumping

   Note

   Here the tilt does the work. The verb behind the noun means both to empty a container by tilting it and, more bluntly, to dump refuse. A load tipped from a truck bed is therefore poured out much as the tilting sense describes. The noun names the act of unloading waste, often at a particular site, as in unauthorized tipping at a quarry.

5. 5
   nounAustraliacountable or uncountable

   A competition in which entrants try to predict the outcomes of sporting events.

   The workplace tipping pits coworkers against each other every season.

   He topped the tipping by correctly calling every match in the finals.

   Note

   Australian sporting life has its own name for the prediction game, drawn from tip in its sense of "predict": entrants tip the winners, and the competition is the tipping. It takes the article and often a venue. Danny Lannen's 2016 report has a Cats fan who won the tipping at The Break three years in a row. Outside Australia, a listener may hear gratuities instead.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A crisp articulation for rapid flute passages, produced by striking the tongue against the roof of the mouth; also called double-tonguing.

   The flutist used tipping to articulate the rapid sixteenth notes without slurring.

   Mastering tipping took months of slow practice with a metronome.

   Similardouble-tonguing

   Note

   A flutist's term for one way of starting notes cleanly at speed. The tongue strikes the roof of the mouth, so each quick note gets its own distinct onset instead of running into the next as a slur would. Double-tonguing names the same technique, and the two terms are interchangeable here. Tipping in this sense belongs specifically to the flute.

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