Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) to cut a purse or pick a pocket.

1592		Greene Quip for an Upstart Courtier G3: It is reported you can lift or nip a boung like a quire Coue if you want pence.
1600		Munday & Drayton Sir John Oldcastle V ii: Come, for Lancashire: we must nip the bung for these crowns.
1610		Rowlands Martin Mark-all 58: He made among other, these Statutes among them, that whosoeuer he be, that being borne and bred vp in the trade of maunding, nipping and foisting for the space of tenne years, and hath, not the right dexterity in his fingers to picke a pocket, but is faine to cloy his fellowes, and cowarly to demand scrappage.
1621		Jonson Gypsies Metamorphosed 4: Therefore, till [...] he be able to beate it on the hard hoofe, to the ben bowse, or the stauling Ken, to nip a Jan, and cly the iarke; ’tis thought fitt he marche in the Infants equipage.
1637		Dekker Canting Song in Eng. Villainies (8th edn) O: If we niggle or mill a Bowsing Ken, Or nip a Boung that hath a Win .
c.1658		J. Cleveland Cleivelandi Vindiciae (1677) 99: He is in the Inquisition of the Purse an Aunthentick Gyspsie, that nips your bung with a canting Ordinance [F&H].
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 40: One of our diving Comrades pickt their pockets, or with a short sharp knife, and a horn on the thumb nipt their bungs.
1680		Proc. Old Bailey 7 July n.p.: It was said, that some of the Diving Gang should declare, That they would go no more to Church, because many of them had had such ill there of late, but henceforth they would haunt the Quakers Meetings, and nip their things without controul.
1688		R. Holme Academy of Armory Ch. iii item 68c: Canting Terms used by Beggars, Vagabonds, Cheaters, Cripples and Bedlams. [...] Nip, cut.
1708		J. Hall Memoirs (1714) 13: Nip, to Pick.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 59: They endeavour’d to nip his Bung, pick his Pocket.
1740		Poor Robin n.p.: Meanwhile the cut-purse in the throng, / Hath a fair means to nyp a bung [F&H].
1895		Truth (Sydney) 27 Jan. 1/8: When the starving poor ‘nip’ such purses, they are crushed [...] by the overwhelming discovery that the thing contains nothing but a crumpled tram-ticket.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 96: As fly a dip as ever nipped a watch or copped a leather.
1914		J. McCree ‘Types’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 When you’re out to do some dipping, / Leather stripping, pocket nipping.

2. (UK Und.) to arrest.

1567		R. Edwards Damon and Pithias (1571) Bii: I go into the Cittie some knaues to nip.
1608		Dekker Belman of London H3: The Under-keepers of Newgate [...] haue a tricke to get a warrant, into which they put the names of nine or ten of the most notorious Foists and Nips that are free of their Gaole (which they call Whittington Colledge,) and those Nips or Foists doe the Jaylors nip.
1621		Jonson Masque of the Gipsies in Q. Horatius Flaccus (1640) 55: Here’s no Justice Lippus / Will seeke for to nip us / In Crampring, or Cippus.
1630		J. Taylor Brood of Cormorants in Works (1869) III 10: I haue heard some Serieants haue beene mild, / And vs’d their Prisoner like a Christians child; / Nip’d him in priuate.
1654		Witts Recreations ‘Fancies & Fantasticks’ No. 126: Here’s no Justice Lippus / Will seek for to nip us, / In Cramp-ring or Cippus.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Jan. 7/3: Two new swindlers [...] got ‘nipped’ on their first operation .
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 8 Feb. 2/2: ‘I made haste to get out of town. But they nipped me afterward, and it cost me $1,800 to get out of the scrape’.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 39: We were sent from the station expressly to nip you.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 70: Say, you’d thought the Boss had been nipped with the goods on.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I viii: We’re nipped—de lot of us!
1920		F. Packard White Moll 34: The police, or anybody else, aren’t to know anything about it, because then they’d nip my friends. See?
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 34: I’ll go out and nip her myself—in person.
1938		E. Hoffman Price ‘Revolt of the Damned’ Double-Action Gang June 🌐 Not to make a horse’s neck of the God damn feds [...] if they’re screwballs enough to try to nip me.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 145/2: Nip. (Rare) To arrest.
1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 85: He nipped me by my coatsleeve and lamped me with a wicked eye.

3. to cheat, to take advantage of.

1648		Dekker Canters Dict. in Eng. Villainies (9th edn) n.p.: Nap, Nip, to Cheat.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) II [as cit. 1648].
1930		in Variety 8 Jan. 123: Suckers wouldn’t be nipped [...] if they weren’t trying to beat some game themselves [HDAS].
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

4. to steal (from), to snatch, to shoplift.

a.1674		‘The Thief-Ketcher’s Song’ Head Canting Academy (1674) 145: The twelfth a Trapan, if a Cull he does meet, / He nips all his Cole, and turns him i’th’street.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Nip [...] to Pinch or Sharp any thing.
1712		‘Black Procession’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 38: The twelfth is a beau-trap, if a cull he does meet, He nips all his cole, and turns him into the street.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1736		A. Ramsay Scotch Proverbs (Jamieson) 87: Yet was set off frae the oon for nipping the pyes [F&H].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 24 Nov. 106/1: He then throws his lacing around them and eventually nipps them of their sixpenny tickets.
1842		Bell’s Penny Dispatch 17 Apr. 4/2: [H]e smiled, and, unseen, gave us the wink [...] ‘I thought it would be queer if they could nip him so sweet as that,’ said Curtis.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1876		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Tom Sawyer 256: Whoever nipped the whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon.
1887		Lantern (N.O.) 16 Apr. 2: The car drivers on the Magazine line nip more fares.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 53: Nip, [...] to steal.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 262: W’en one of ’em nipped a super or a rock, an’ wanted d’ quick dough, he brought it to me fadder, who chucked down d’ stuff an’ no questions asked.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 7 Sept. 3/5: [A] bloke named ‘Yumpy Bill’ was quodded, he being suspected. of having ‘nipped a nag’.
1908		‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 18: At the same time she ‘nipped’ a letter which the man dropped from his jacket, and thus got down on the whole business.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 45: These men become so expert at nipping stones they can cut one from the pin without looking.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 279: I just nipped the keys off the nail by the door.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 11: Sapphire Harris swears he’s even nipped the diamond out of a Begum’s nose.

5. (US) to shoot someone.

1865

Harper’s Monthly June 11: If I’d had a six-shooter [...] they’d a carried away the fellow that nipped Jack!

6. (US) to defeat.

1893		R.G. Hampton Major in Wash. City 67: I got nipped at poker agin yesterday evenin’.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

7. (US Und.) to obtain, to get hold of.

[1612		Dekker Canting Song O per se O O3: This cuffin, getting glimmer / I’ th’ prat, so cleymed his jockey, / The nab was queer, the bube him nipped].
1908		‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. 🌐 Ch. xxxiv: I’ve got some valuable information—some ‘tips’ that Vance will pay big money to ‘nip’.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 228: He was to start hitchin’ up at two-thirty and thought he’d nip a little sleep till then.

8. of a man, to have sexual intercourse.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

9. (Aus./N.Z.) to borrow, to cadge, to wheedle (money) out of.

1919		N.Z. Truth 21 June 1/7: He’ll nip you mornin’, noon and night .
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: nip. To be[g] or borrow.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 172: He had tried to nip Zigfeld for five shillings and been firmly refused.
1957		P. Beveridge Inside the C.I.D. 35: ‘That you, guv’nor?’ said the voice of the man who had ‘nipped’ me for five shilings.
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Thicker than Water’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Well why don’t you nip Del for a few quid?

10. (US black) to slash with a knife.

1941

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 9 Aug. 13: Nipping the thinkbox straight up and down — Slicing the head with a knife that way.

11. (US black) to scratch to give a superficial wound.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

12. (Irish/Scot.) to pick up (a woman).

1985		M. Munro Patter 49: To nip a wee burd is one way of saying pick up a girl.
2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 77: Turns out, roysh, he nipped her in Annabel’s last Friday night.

13. (Scot.) to pet, to neck.

2020

G. Armstrong Young Team 40: A go in slowly n she tilts hur heed the right way. We’re nippin like fuck in the back seat.