tipple
1 Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
noun
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a device that tilts or overturns a freight car to dump its contents.
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a place where loaded cars are emptied by tipping.
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Mining. a structure where coal is cleaned and loaded in railroad cars or trucks.
noun
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a device for overturning ore trucks, mine cars, etc, so that they discharge their load
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a place at which such trucks are tipped and unloaded
verb
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tipplesimple
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tipplessimple
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have tippledperfect
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has tippledperfect
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am tipplingprogressive
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are tipplingprogressive
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is tipplingprogressive
-
have been tipplingperfect progressive
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has been tipplingperfect progressive
Past
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tippledsimple
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had tippledperfect
-
was tipplingprogressive
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were tipplingprogressive
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had been tipplingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tipple1
1490–1500; back formation from Middle English tipeler tapster, equivalent to tipel- tap 2 (cognate with Dutch tepel teat) + -er -er 1; cf. tipsy
Origin of tipple2
1875–80, noun use of dial. tipple to tumble, frequentative of tip 2; see -le
Explanation
Use the verb tipple when you want to show that someone drinks moderately but regularly. During Prohibition in the 1920s it was illegal to tipple but today you can tipple almost anywhere — as long as you are 21. As a noun, a tipple is an alcoholic drink. Your usual tipple may be a glass of wine with dinner, but at a summer barbecue your tipple may be beer. From tipple we also get the noun tippler — a person who drinks regularly but moderately. Experts aren't sure where the word tipple comes from, but it may be from a Norwegian word, tipla, which means to drink slowly.
Vocabulary lists containing tipple
Antony and Cleopatra
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Vocabulary Video Contest (2013) - List 2
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2014 Vocabulary Video Contest (M-Z)
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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.
See Examples For:
While you’re away, pinpoint at least one delicacy that will transport your guests to your vacation destination, preferably accompanied by a traditional tipple.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
“The tipple of Hong Kong,” according to Hahn.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2025
To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, I guess the rich drink different from you and me — and Sacramento is helping them tipple it up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2024
The results suggest blueberry wine maintains some of the fruit's nutrients and the team identifies ways to optimize components in this superfood tipple.
From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024
He plopped on his hat and trudged off toward the tipple.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
Bar directors know such prices can elicit scoffs of disbelief, but they justify the big-ticket tipples by comparing them to special-occasion items at restaurants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
The drink list moves from traditional tipples, such as Manhattans and sazeracs, to Asian-inspired creations, such as the peach soju mule, a riff on the Moscow mule.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 22, 2019
Local brothers David, Peter and Jack Baker, who in their previous career distributed Crystal Rock water, produce award-winning tipples, including a smooth bourbon whiskey, vodka and gin.
From New York Times ● Jun. 20, 2018
“You see coal tipples all over this region but you don’t necessarily see coal breakers,” said Barbara L. Jones, chief curator at the Westmoreland.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 25, 2017
A creditor of the two exiled royal brothers for sundry tavern loans and tipples drew for his obligation an office in far-off Virginia.
From The Entailed Hat Or, Patty Cannon's Times by Townsend, George Alfred
The McDonoughs began writing bail bonds as a favor to lawyers who tippled at their bar.
From Time Magazine Archive
It tippled a moment, then clove desperately upward, straight for the crow's nest of the big elm.
From Time Magazine Archive
Things sprang into the air and, before they tippled to the blocks of dancing ice, a boom rolled to the woman's ears.
From Time Magazine Archive
Walpole openly entertained his mistress there; Pitt happily tippled his port on the premises; and Disraeli penned his Endymion between parliamentary debates.
From Time Magazine Archive
When we had thus chatted and tippled, Bacbuc asked, Who of you here would have the word of the Bottle?
From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 5 by Motteux, Peter Anthony
Between “Downton” and Professor McGonagall an adoring public saw in Smith an endlessly entertaining, tippling grandmother and that endearing teacher who balanced strictness with caring.
From Salon ● Oct. 1, 2024
While the majority of the tippling public tends to see the category through the lens of one or two famous brands, Irish whiskey is not just one thing.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 12, 2021
A dry British butler helps his tippling master choose love with a waitress or marriage for money.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2019
Even so, Corbyn’s critics pointed out, the institution of tippling with colleagues is never going to go away.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 6, 2016
It is, however, mostly a gun-tackle term.—Bowse up the jib, a colloquialism to denote the act of tippling: it is an old phrase, and was probably derived from the Dutch buyzen, to booze.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir
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.
