Clip Meaning
/klɪp/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo grip tightly.
verbTo fasten with a clip.
Sentence Examples
A note was attached to the document with a paper clip.
Do they clip the sheep every year?
Here is a clip from her latest movie.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Please use this paper ____ to hold the documents together securely.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I used a small paper ____ to keep all the documents together now.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English clippen, cleppen, clüppen, from Old English clyppan (“to hug, embrace, cherish, clasp”), from Proto-Germanic *klumpijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *glemb-, *glembʰ- (“lump, clump, clod, clamp”). Cognate with Old Frisian kleppa, klippa (“to hug, embrace”), Middle High German klimpen, klimpfen (“to contract tightly, constrict, squeeze”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""As how, my lambkin," blushing, she replide, / "Because I in this dancing schoole abide? / If that it be, that breede's this discontent, / We will remoue the camp incontinent: / For shelter onelie, sweete heart, came I hither, / And to auoide the troblous stormie weather; / But now the coaste is cleare, we will be gonne, / Since, but thy self, true louer I haue none." / With that she sprung full lightlie to my lips / And fast about the neck me colle's, and clips ..."
— 1593, Thomas Nashe, The Choice of Valentines:
"What, fifty of my followers at a clap!"
— c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
"When we had sufficiently graduated our advances towards the main point, by toying, kissing, clipping, feeling my breasts, now round and plump, feeling that part of me I might call a furnace-mouth, from the prodigious intense heat his fiery touches had rekindled there, my young sportsman, embolden'd by every freedom he could wish, wantonly takes my hand, and carries it to that enormous machine of his"
— 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:
"White thy fambles, red thy gan / And thy quarrons dainty is. / Couch a hogshead with me then. / In the darkmans clip and kiss."
— 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 3]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
"But finding theſe North climes do coldly him embrace, / Not vſde to frozen clips, he ſtraue to find ſome part, / Where with most eaſe & warmth he might employ his art: […]"
— c. 1580s, Philip Sidney, “Astrophel and Stella”, in [Mary Sidney], editor, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia […] [The New Arcadia], 3rd edition, London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1598, →OCLC, sonnet 8, page 521:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Please use this paper ____ to hold the documents together securely.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I used a small paper ____ to keep all the documents together now.