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Glite Dictionary
✒️ A pen tip ✒️ To shape a tip 🐦 A beak tip
nib

nib

5.8
A hard outer tip of a bird's beak used for pecking or breaking food
  • noun
  • /nɪb/
translation icon : pico

Examples

  • The plump rusty nib facing him seemed to relax.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • The returned pressure of the bark against the nib of the pen suggests a response, a willing participant in the written, an equal pleasure in being written upon.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The woodpecker used its hard nib to drill into the tree trunk in search of insects.

  • As she observed the bird, she noted the curvature of its nib that is adapted for cracking seeds.

  • The eagle's sharp nib allows it to tear apart its prey with precision.

Compounds

pen nib
4.1

The small pointed metal tip of a pen that puts ink on paper

How Pointed

needlelike
1 4.9
nib
5.8

Surface Forms

nib singular
nibs plural

Etymology

Nib originally meant a bird's 'beak', from the old word neb, so the word still fits the hard, pointed tip of a bird's beak. That's why we call that small, horny tip a nib.