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Glite Dictionary
🌬️ Pleasantly cold 💬 Sharp or hurtful
nipping

nipping

3.5
Slightly cold and fresh in a way that makes you feel awake
  • adjective
  • /ˈnɪpɪŋ/
translation icon : fresquito
  • A nipping breeze swept across the fields as the sun began to rise.

Examples

  • We enjoyed a long walk outside despite the nipping air.

  • I enjoy the nipping air in the fall.

  • The nipping weather made her cheeks glow with warmth after coming back inside.

  • The nipping wind made us feel alive!

  • A nipping breeze swept across the fields as the sun began to rise.

  • The nipping weather made her cheeks glow with warmth after coming back inside.

  • We enjoyed a long walk outside despite the nipping air.

Synonyms

crisp
vsnipping
25 2.7

Pleasantly cold and fresh, making you feel awake

is more about bracing cold that stimulates and wakes you up
frosty
vsnipping
11 1.0

Cold, often with a thin layer of ice on the ground

emphasizes pleasant briskness rather than freezing or icy conditions
nippy
vsnipping
8 4.1

A little cold weather that makes you need a jacket

is slightly more about a pleasant, bracing chill
snappy
vsnipping
1 4.0

Briskly cold and fresh, making you feel awake

is less sharp and more generally bracing and pleasant
in the nip
vsnipping
  • Informal
9.9

When the weather is cold outside

focuses on the pleasantly invigorating aspect rather than plain coldness
niffy
vsnipping
  • UK
9.9

Being a little cold, especially the air or weather

describes a more clearly bracing and refreshing chill

Antonyms

stifling
4 5.3

Very hot, close air that makes it hard to breathe

sweltering
1 4.8

Weather that is very hot and humid makes you sweat and feel uncomfortable

How Cold

freezing
1.0
cold
∞ 1.0
chilly
100 1.0
nipping
3.5
cool
65 1.0
mild
75 1.0

Surface Forms

nipping positive

Morphology

nipping = nip (transparent) = nip + ing

Formed directly from the verb 'nip' with -ing; the sense of a cold wind causing a small biting sensation is a direct, literal extension.

Etymology

Nipping comes from the short verb nip, which means 'to pinch' or 'bite'. So cold wind that 'nips' your cheeks feels like a small sharp bite, and that is why nipping describes pleasantly cold, bracing weather.