nipple
/ˈnɪp.əl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.45 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The projection of a mammary gland from which, on female therian mammals, milk is secreted.
noun
An artificial nipple (noun sense 1) used for bottle-feeding infants.
noun
Any small physical protrusion on an automotive, a machine part or any other part that fits into a groove on another part.
noun
A perforated segment that fits into part of the breech of a muzzle-loading gun, on which the percussion cap is fixed.
Example Sentences
- "Mary felt annoyed at the girl; just because bras had become passé, did a girl with so pronounced a bosom have to cater to fashion? In this case practicality dictated a bra, and Mary stood at the desk feeling herself flushing with disapproval. And artificial nipple-dilation; it was just too much."
- "Joan Trieste wore skin-tight dark pants and slippers and a cotton man’s-style shirt; as far as he could tell, she had on no bra, as fashion dictated, but her nipples were merely flat dark circles beneath the white cotton fabric of her shirt: she could not afford or did not care to have the currently-popular dilation operation."
- "I could tell he didn't agree but he went to the corner and took up his squirrel gun, feeling the nipple for a percussion cap."
- "Turn the nipples on to the bicycle spokes only one turn, for each spoke on the new wheel all the way around until they are all snug, then check alignment."
- "These were first constructed by heading the spokes, threading them through a steel felloe or rim and inserting them into screwed nipples which were in their turn screwed into the flanges of the hub."
- "In the original context of the World Wide Web the ’authorities’ are information sources, whereas herein the ’authorities’ are the material sinks. The hubs remain the ’naves’ in the link structure but are the sources of material. Continuing the wheel analogy, the authorities would be ‘spoke nipples’"
Etymology
From earlier neple, nypil, neble, believed to be a diminutive of nib, neb (“tip, point”), equivalent to nib + -le. Compare Old English nypel (“elephant trunk”), formed analogously as "a protuberance from one's neb" .
Word Breakdown
Usage
- American usage
- Humorous
- Transitive verb
Inflected Forms
nipples (plural)
neple (alternative, obsolete)
nypil (alternative, obsolete)
nyppell (alternative, obsolete)
neapel (alternative, obsolete)
neaple (alternative, obsolete)
neble (alternative, obsolete)
nipples (present, singular)
nippling (participle, present)
nippled (participle, past)
nippled (past)