different between plier vs nipper

English

Etymology

ply +? -er

Noun

plier (plural pliers)

1. One who plies.

See also

• pliers (plurale tantum)

Anagrams

• peril, piler, prile

French

Etymology

From Latin plic?re, present active infinitive of plic?. This produced Old French ploiier, pleier in Old French, which was later changed analogically under the influence of the stressed stem pli-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pli.je/

Verb

plier

1. (transitive) to fold (bend (something) over; arrange by folding)
2. to fold up
3. to bend
4. to mess up; to do in; to damage
5. (figuratively) to kill, kill off (a game)

Conjugation

Derived terms

Related terms

• ployer

Further reading

• “plier” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• péril, piler, repli

Maltese

Etymology

From Italo-Romance (compare Italian piliere), from Old French piler, from Vulgar Latin *pil?re, derived from pila.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pl??r/

Noun

plier m (plural plieri)

1. pillar

   Synonym: kolonna

Middle French

Etymology

Modified from Old French pleier, ploiier under the influence of the stressed stem pli-.

Verb

plier

1. to fold

Conjugation

• Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

Descendants

• French: plier

English

Etymology

nip +? -er

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?p?(?)/
• Rhymes: -?p?(?)

Noun

nipper (plural nippers)

1. One who, or that which, nips.
2. (usually in the plural) Any of various devices (as pincers) for nipping.
3. (slang) A child.
   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 193. ?ISBN

     Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?

4. (Australia) A child aged from 5 to 13 in the Australian surf life-saving clubs.
   • 2003 Some Like It Hot: The Beach As a Cultural Dimension

     SLSA has become a multi-million dollar enterprise comprising 262 clubs located around the Australian coastline, with 100000 members, which included thousands of juniors or 'nippers', as they were more commonly known.

   • 2008, Tania Cassidy, Robyn L. Jones, Paul Potrac, Understanding Sports Coaching: The Social, Cultural and Pedagogical Foundations of Coaching Practice

     It is the first day of training for a group of ten 'little nippers' (novice surf life-savers). An assortment of children expectantly hover in the clubhouse.

   • 2009, Didgeridoos and Didgeridon'ts: A Brit 's Guide to Moving Your Life Down Under

     Every club around Australia offers a Nippers programme. Nippers is open to children from the age of 5 through to 13 years old […]

   • October 6, 2011, [1]

     The Nippers program, for children aged five to thirteen, promotes water safety skills and confidence in a safe beach environment

   • September 5, 2013, Eve Jeffery, "Nippers season begins on the north coast", in Echonetdaily

     Of our movement’s 153,000 members, over 58,500 are nippers (5-13 years). This equates to nearly 40% of our total membership and shows just how significant the junior movement is within surf lifesaving.

5. (historical) A boy working as a navvies' assistant.
6. (Canada, slang, Newfoundland) A mosquito.
7. One of four foreteeth in a horse.
8. (obsolete) A satirist.
   • 1570, Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster

     […] ready backbiters, sore nippers, and spiteful reporters privily of good men.

9. (obsolete, slang) A pickpocket; a young or petty thief.
10. A fish, the cunner.
11. A European crab (Polybius henslowii).
12. The claws of a crab or lobster.
13. A young bluefish.
14. (dated) A machine used by a ticket inspector to stamp passengers' tickets.
    • 1908, Transport World (volume 24, page 319)

      The railway ticket nipper has the identification number of the conductor on it […]

15. One of a pair of automatically locking handcuffs.

Synonyms

• (pickpocket): see Thesaurus:pickpocket

Translations

Verb

nipper (third-person singular simple present nippers, present participle nippering, simple past and past participle nippered)

1. (nautical, transitive) To seize (two ropes) together.