pip, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pip n.¹

[SE pip, ‘a disease of poultry and other birds, characterized by the secretion of a thick mucus in the mouth and throat, often with the formation of a white scale on the tip of the tongue’ (OED)]

1. ill humour or poor health.

1538		J. Bale Comedye Concernyng Three Lawes (1550) Act II: A dramme of a shepes tyrdle [...] With the hemlet of an byrdle, Are wholesom for the pyppe.
1567		R. Edwards Damon and Pithias (1571) 81: It scrapeth off a pimpell, to ease you of the Pippe.
1677		Behn Rover III i: I will not dyeof the Pip, so I will not.
1709		‘Phoebe Crackenthorpe’ Female Tatler (1992) (15) 38: They die o’ the pip.
1748		Spy on Mother Midnight II 14: Sir Andrew [...] as next Heir to the Squire, did not care if Miss died of the Pip, or any other Disease, natural or unnatural.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 26: Shaking, and sad with the Walcheren pip.
1835		A.B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes (1848) 195: Some took to takin’ the gaps, and some the pip, and one ailment or other, till they most all died.
1837		‘The Cannon Family’ Bentley’s Misc. Aug. 160: Do you think, woman, that Hiccup would condescend to come to you and me were we kicking in fits, dying with the pip, or had swallowed a mutton-chop the wrong way?
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 22 Nov. n.p.: Lewis M—n has had a severe attack of the pip since the election.
1898		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley in Peace and War 78: He’s wan iv th’ gr-greatest surgeons iv our time [...] an’ can cure annything fr’m pips to glanders.
1904		Kipling ‘The Bonds of Discipline’ Traffics and Discoveries 55: ‘What’s an admiral after all?’ ’e says. ‘Why, ’e’s only a post-captain with the pip.’.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 May 2nd sect. 12/8: Whenever I acquire the pip, / Or find the way too rough.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Intermittent Fusser’ Ade’s Fables 44: Soon after recovering from the Pip, known in Medical Parlance as the Spooney Infantuin [etc.].

2. syphilis.

1567		Trial of Treasure Cii: I would this luberly knaue had the pip.
1583		P. Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses 41: Beware the Spanish pip.
1591		Greene Second Part of Conny-Catching in Grosart Works (1881–3) X 108: [Those given to] leud companie ... sometime ... catch such a Spanish pip, that they haue no more hair on their head then on their nails.
1622		Massinger Virgin-Martyr II i: Therein thou showed’st thyself a perfect demi-Christian too, to let the poor beg, starve, and hang, or die of the pip.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 497: Be sure all you that take care not to die of the pip.
1705		N. Ward Fortune’s Bounty in Miscellaneous Writings III 228: [I have] a Spouse, a Pip upon her, So Lustful, that I’m sure her Tail is As hot as Lapis Infernalis’.
c.1780		‘Sally Mac Gee’ in Holloway & Black (1975) I 242: I gave him the slip, and a smoaking hot pip.
1836		‘I Met Her At A Bawdy Ken’ Frisky Vocalist 30: The swell coves pass’d her coolly by [...] And I will tell you the reason why – / She’d got the woful pip.
1842		‘When The Pip Hath Bereft Thee!’ Nobby Songster 17: When the pip hath bereft thee, / Of half of thy nose.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 11 Oct. n.p.: Wonder if her sister, Maria, has got rid of the pip.
1969		T. Murphy Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant (1978) Scene vii: None of them had any truckin’ with diseased auld hens, with the pip or pox or whatever they had.

In derivatives

pippish (adj.)

irritated, out of sorts.

1914

E Pugh Cockney At Home 170: I went home one afternoon very pippish.

pippy (adj.)

(Aus.) irritated, out of sorts.

1886		R. Fry letter 28 Nov. in Letters (1972) I 111: My Mays depress me, so does my Tripos [...] In fact I am stupidly pippy at times and cannot think why .
1920		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Hat Tonic’ Sporting Times 7 Feb. 1/3: In a new hat I’m a bold one, but when I’m out in an old one / I’m as pippy as a ’tec without a clue.
1940		H. Drake-Brockman Hot Gold I iii: When you got so pippy, I went out.

In phrases

get the pip (v.) (also have the pip)

1. to feel depressed, out of sorts, ill.

1837–8		‘Farewell to Sal’s Fountain’ Cuckold’s Nest 33: But as I’ve got the pip now, / Farewell, O farewell!
1854		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) II 205: What makes ’em bark? Why, because they’ve got the pip, poor beggars!
1886–96		Marshall ‘The Luxury of Doing Good’ ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un 41: It cost a bit to square up the attack; For the landlord had the pip [F&H].
1891		Preston Herald 14 Jan. 7/3: Rovers yet may get the pip. Since there must be full many a slip / Between the football cup and lip.
1905		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 Nov. 3/2: Then it’s chip, chip, / Till you fairly get the ‘pip,’ / An’ the streets all seem to beckon – / Sayin’, ‘Give the thing the slip.’.
1915		C.J. Dennis ‘A Spring Song’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 13: Fer, as the poit sez, me ’eart ’as got / The pip wiv yearnin’ fer – I dunno wot.
1923		J. Armour Spell of the Inland 95: Why can’t he buck up? He has had the pip for weeks.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 402: Got the pip, I guess . . . she gives me a pain in the neck.
1940		Manchester Eve. News 12 Dec. 2/6: [headline] He Got the Pip [...] / Not satisfied with the choice of unrationed food [...] / Anti-Humbug must crib about ‘Bread and Milk’.
1963		H.E. Bates Oh! To be in England (1985) 373: I get the pip without company.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 96: ‘Gives you the pip’ means one has had enough [...] ‘I got the pip and came home’.
1987		Stage (London) 16 July 1/1: [headline] Staff get the Pip over ICA Sacking.

2. to become obsessed with.

1914

E. Pugh Cockney At Home 85: I’d got the air pip.

give someone the pip (v.) (also pip)

to annoy or to infuriate someone, or to be so annoyed oneself.

1892		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. (London) 23 Apr. 9/2: Well, she cries. Then Wilfred Denver comes on the scene: he is rather boosed and gets the needle seeing his wife crying (even when he’s sober it gives him the pip).
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Courting Case in Court’ Sporting Times 7 Apr. 1/4: Well, and what about them? Straight, it gives me the pip [...] to think Jimmy was landed / For behaving like every bloke does when he’s out / With his gal.
1905		Sporting Times 1 Apr. 11/2: A man who complained that his wife would eat oranges in bed, wouldn’t even smile when asked if that give him the pip.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Sept. 4/7: Yooster give me the pip ter see ’ow me old woman [...] cottened to the ’ulkin’ swine wot allus ’ad grease-paint round their mince-pies.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 245: Now, wouldn’t that give you the pip?
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 31: As I say [...] it is the comin’ back what pips one.
1908		Sporting Times 14 Mar. 1/5: ‘Off to Sunday-school, I see. Now, which do you like best—going to Sunday-school or coming home from it?’ ‘’Bout the same,’ answered the little man, doggedly. ‘It’s the stayin’ there in between times what gives me the pip!’.
1910		Wodehouse Psmith in the City (1993) 27: That’s the sort of thing which gives me the pip.
1915		T. Burke Nights in Town 225: Oh, shut up, for Christ’s sake, cancher? Give any one the fair pip, you do.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I v: Aw, say, Skeeter, dis high-brow stunt gives me de pip!
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘A Guide for Poits’ in Backblock Ballads 40: It gives a bloke the everlastin’ pip.
1919		‘Bartimeus’ ‘The Wooing of Mouldy Jakes’ in Awfully Big Adventure 13: They give me the holy pip.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 77: It always gives me the pip.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 293: Talking all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘Narcissus’ in Rose of Spadgers 🌐 Them ’ints the parson drops give me the pip.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 184: I churned the gravel madly. This blighter was giving me the pip.
1931		J. Hanley Boy 92: He gives me the pip. The bloomin’ pip.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 129: If there is one thing that gives me the pip, it is two loving hearts being estranged.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Winter Feeding the Herd’ in Me And Gus (1977) 79: He kept rubbing his hands and stalking about, chuckling until he gave me the pip.
1940		R. Service ‘The Ballad of the Ice Worm Cocktail’ in Bar Room Ballads (1978) 633: It’s very sight gives me the pip.
1949		P. Wentworth Latter End (2001) 306: I shouldn’t give people the pip when I looked at them.
1949		Wodehouse Mating Season 14: The idea of her marrying me gives them the pip.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 288: That bloody place gives me the pip.
1959		J. Osborne World of Paul Slickey Act II: Those burning lips / Give us the pips.
1960		(con. c.1918) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 18: The same old thing day after day fair gives you the pip.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 38: It would be fatal to risk giving her the pip in any way.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 145: That oul wan would give yeh the pips with all her praying.
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 157: Will you all stop grinning at me? You give me the pip.
1988		R. Doyle Commitments 156: That sort of talk gave Jimmy the pip.
1999		Indep. Rev. 31 July 20: London’s not at it’s best in August, and rather tends to give me the pip.
2000		Indep. Rev. 26 Feb. 16: So what gave him the pip?
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 209: Theatre Studies was giving him the pip. ‘Motherfucking Courage,’ he complained [...] ‘Brecht’.
2011		Intelligent Life Late Summer 38/1: He is a reasonably tolerant guy, but something about greens [...] gives him ‘he pip’.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 382: ‘He gives me the pip, that’s for sure’.

pip n.1

In derivatives

In phrases

pip n.¹