dip
pronunciation
How to pronounce dip in British English:
UK [dɪp]
How to pronounce dip in American English:
US [dɪp]
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- Noun:
- a depression in an otherwise level surface
- (physics) the angle that a magnetic needle makes with the plane of the horizon
- a thief who steals from the pockets or purses of others in public places
- tasty mixture or liquid into which bite-sized foods are dipped
- a brief immersion
- a sudden sharp decrease in some quantity
- a candle that is made by repeated dipping in a pool of wax or tallow
- a brief swim in water
- a gymnastic exercise on the parallel bars in which the body is lowered and raised by bending and straightening the arms
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- Verb:
- immerse briefly into a liquid so as to wet, coat, or saturate
- dip into a liquid while eating
- go down momentarily
- stain an object by immersing it in a liquid
- switch (a car's headlights) from a higher to a lower beam
- lower briefly
- appear to move downward
- slope downwards
- dip into a liquid
- of candles; by dipping the wick into hot, liquid wax
- immerse in a disinfectant solution
- scoop up by plunging one's hand or a ladle below the surface
Word Origin
- dip
- dip: [OE] Like deep, dip comes ultimately from a Germanic base *d(e)up- ‘deep, hollow’. The derived verb, *dupjan, produced Old English dyppan, ancestor of modern English dip. It originally meant quite specifically ‘immerse’ in Old English, sometimes with reference to baptism; the sense ‘incline downwards’ is a 17th-century development.=> deep, dimple
- dip (v.)
- Old English dyppan "immerse, baptize by immersion," from Proto-Germanic *duppjan (cognates: Old Norse deypa "to dip," Danish døbe "to baptize," Old Frisian depa, Dutch dopen, German taufen, Gothic daupjan "to baptize"), related to Old English diepan "immerse, dip," and perhaps ultimately to deep. As a noun, from 1590s. Sense of "downward slope" is 1708. Meaning "sweet sauce for pudding, etc." first recorded 1825.
- dip (n.)
- "stupid person, eccentric person," 1920s slang, perhaps a back-formation from dippy. "Dipshit is an emphatic form of dip (2); dipstick may be a euphemism or may reflect putative dipstick 'penis' " [DAS].
Example
- 1. Stocks of good companies dip for all sorts of reasons on their way to long-term gains .
- 2. And most freelancers haven 't planned for this dip .
- 3. It took a dip , but recently sales have been booming .
- 4. China bears respond that this is likely to be a temporary dip .
- 5. Most officials believe unemployment can dip to 5 % or 6 % without inflation .