nipping
Americanadjective
-
sharp or biting, as cold.
-
sarcastic; caustic.
adjective
-
sharp and biting
a nipping wind
-
sarcastic; bitter
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of nipping
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Without competition nipping at its heels, Bell Labs engineers had the luxury of working out difficult ideas over decades.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 28, 2026
Claude-maker Anthropic has OpenAI, Google's Gemini and even Grok from xAI nipping at its heels in the market for professional AI.
From Barron's • Feb. 22, 2026
Microsoft currently holds the rank of the third-largest U.S. company, but can it maintain its lead with Alphabet nipping at its heels?
From MarketWatch • Nov. 19, 2025
Far removed from a typical Aussie seamer, O'Neill is more like an English medium-pacer, nipping the ball around.
From BBC • Nov. 5, 2025
In these long summer days, his uncle Finn, Junior Haskell, and Joplin, Missouri, all seemed like a faint memory that was no longer nipping at his heels.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
