(v. t.) To bite by little at a time; to seize gently with the mouth; to eat slowly or in small bits.
(v. t.) To bite upon something gently or cautiously; to eat a little of a thing, as by taking small bits cautiously; as, fishes nibble at the bait.
(n.) A small or cautious bite.
Example Sentences:
(1) Within an hour after nibbling a small test meal, the flux of glucose C into total body fatty acids increased 700% in mice previously starved for 24 hr.
(2) By noon, the small fish market on shore is packed with black crows nibbling on hundreds of butchered fish heads, shark fins and long red swordfish tongues.
(3) Across this relatively peaceful corner of the Horn of Africa, where black-headed sheep scamper among the thorn bushes, dainty gerenuk balance on their hind legs to nibble from hardy shrubs, and skinny camels wearing rough-hewn bells lumber over rocky slopes, people long accustomed to a harsh environment find they cannot cope after years of below-average rainfall.
(4) £25 a head for a cocktail, nibbles and three courses.
(5) variable (VH), diversity (DH), and joining (JH), germline gene segments, exonuclease nibbling of the terminals of these gene segments, and the addition of template-independent nucleotide (N-sequences) in the junctions of these segments.
(6) As daylight recedes, men of a certain age sip coffee, nibble on finger dishes or grapple with big round plates of rice and lamb, all the while bouncing opinions back and forth.
(7) It appears that CR caused mice to change from their normal "nibbling behavior" to meal feeding.
(8) Although this effect does not appear to result from antineophobic and anxiolytic effects of this benzodiazepine, very little is known about the possible contribution of stereotyped nibbling and chewing responses to enhanced feeding.
(9) On another, they celebrated her birthday at home with Jill Norman, David's long-time editor, and a bottle of Dom Pérignon, nibbling all the while on her favourite Roka cheese biscuits.
(10) It is concluded that these goats have a feeding habit similar to that of cattle rather than resting their forelimbs on the shrubs while nibbling the leaves as recorded in Asian goats.
(11) The flux of glucose C to TLFA increased by an order of magnitude within an hour after mice nibbled a test meal for several minutes.
(12) It was found that feeding behavior between meals (snacks, nibbling, etc.)
(13) He tried to eat some more of his kebab but was confused and began to nibble on the flyerer's thumb.
(14) As Shallow, he “pecks at the lines, nibbles at them like a parrot biting on a nut; for all his age, he darts here and there nimbly enough, even skittishly: forgetting nothing, not even the pleasure of Falstaff’s page, that ‘little tiny thief’.” But if Tynan was enamoured of Olivier, he was also alert to the miniaturist precision of Alec Guinness.
(15) Comparisons between present-day China and the soulless, dreary totalitarian socialist state immortalised in Orwell's masterpiece are difficult to sustain after seeing clutch after clutch of Chinese teenagers, dressed in the latest quasi-Japanophile fashion, walk down a mobbed Beijing pedestrian shopping arcade nibbling at bouquets of candy floss and prattling on as if the phrase "commodity fetishism" had never crossed their young lips.
(16) Just about everything – from what to serve, to how to eat, nothing brings out more social judgment than nibbles etiquette.
(17) The young Caligula spent six years on the island of Capri, where he often directed and appeared in spectacular pornographic tableaux for his great uncle, the emperor Tiberius – a man it was said, who enjoyed having swimming boys nibble at his private parts.
(18) Recordings were made for 96-h periods, and nibbling bouts were separated from meals according to the time and weight of eating bouts.
(19) We have attempted to measure net changes in lipid content in a discrete "intermuscular" fat pad during rapid lipogenic activation that occurs after a previously fasted mouse nibbles a glucose-rich test meal for several minutes.
(20) A case report is presented of a patient who had liver fibrosis, splenomegaly and ascites, associated with the habit of nibbling tea leaves.
Nip
Definition:
(n.) A sip or small draught; esp., a draught of intoxicating liquor; a dram.
(v. t.) To catch and inclose or compress tightly between two surfaces, or points which are brought together or closed; to pinch; to close in upon.
(v. t.) To remove by pinching, biting, or cutting with two meeting edges of anything; to clip.
(v. t.) Hence: To blast, as by frost; to check the growth or vigor of; to destroy.
(v. t.) To vex or pain, as by nipping; hence, to taunt.
(n.) A seizing or closing in upon; a pinching; as, in the northern seas, the nip of masses of ice.
(n.) A pinch with the nails or teeth.
(n.) A small cut, or a cutting off the end.
(n.) A blast; a killing of the ends of plants by frost.
(n.) A biting sarcasm; a taunt.
(n.) A short turn in a rope.
Example Sentences:
(1) Pupils who disrupt the learning of their classmates are dealt with firmly and, in many cases, a short suspension is an effective way of nipping bad behaviour in the bud."
(2) The intravenous hypotensive potency of NIP-121 but not cromakalim was similar to that of p.o.
(3) It is concluded that NIP and IPPV affect the SV RV and the right heart blood flow.
(4) In support of this contention, it was observed that rabbit antiserum to NP-CG, after absorption with CG-Sepharose, augmented the response of mice to standard immunization with NIP(12)-CG.
(5) Mouse spleen B lymphocytes, enriched for cells bearing anti-NIP (hapten 4-hydroxy-3-iodo-5-nitrophenylacetic acid) receptors, were pretreated briefly with NIP-POL (polymerized flagellin) antigen, washed, and added in small numbers to microcultures.
(6) It was shown that to reticular nucleus stimulation responded predominantly those VP and VL neurons (73.7% and 86.2%, respectively) which responded to stimulation of MI and n. NIP.
(7) The arming factor was neutralized by a sufficient concentration of NIP-BSA (twice the concentration causing maximal precipitation) but low concentrations (e.g., 7% of the maximal precipitation concentration) increased the arming capacity.
(8) Zone C has been defined as the cortical region projecting to the nucleus interpositus anterior (NIA) and posterior (NIP).
(9) The medial two-thirds of the nucleus interpositus posterior (NIP) project only to the medial aspect of the NRm, with no apparent organization.
(10) Attention was focussed on B lymphocytes through using hapten human gamma globulin (HGG) preparations as putative tolerogens in tissue culture, the T-cell-independent antigens DNP-POL and NIP-POL as challenge injections in adoptive hosts, and numbers of hapten-specific PFC in host spleens for the quantitation of immune competence.
(11) Retrograde transport of 3H-nipecotic acid (NIP) labeled the myelinated fibers and neurons of the medial OC system, including collateral projections to the peripheral VCN, subpeduncular granule cells, and nucleus Y. Medial and lateral OC efferent collaterals thus innervate different regions of the CN.
(12) Spleen fragments derived from NIP-CG primed mice produced more IgG anti-NIP antibodies than fragments derived from untreated mice when immunized in vitro with NIP-Ficoll.
(13) These activated T cells responded in vitro very well to the NIP-MGG complex but not to the MGG carrier alone demonstrating the requirement of the hapten for T cell stimulation.
(14) These phenotypic and genetic data confirmed that unique Nip+ L. lactis subsp.
(15) Frank Lampard had moved to nip all talk of farewells in the bud.
(16) Lochhead nips in to poke the pass out of the striker's reach.
(17) Complete resolution of NIPS occurred in only two patients, one of whom later developed Parkinson's disease.
(18) These findings suggest that the inverse association between smoking and IPD may apply to NIP.
(19) Jeremy Hunt has it in his secretary of state's power to nip this in the bud and insist that Papworth should realise its move, 10 years in the planning, to the 310-bed hospital in the Cambridge biomedical campus, next door to Addenbrooke's, where Roy Calne pioneered liver transplantation and much more.
(20) She was joint chair of a group of nearly 70 Labour MPs who last summer launched a pro-Europe campaign group, Labour Yes , in a bid to put forward a distinctive leftwing pro-European voice, and nip in the bud any suggestion that Labour support for a referendum represented a cooling of the party’s support for Europe .