/CHIP-meaning

-) Verb.

-) Pronunciation: tʃɪp.

-) Etymology: from Middle English chippen.

-) Preterite tense: chipped (tʃɪpt).  Preterite participle: chipped.

-) Present participle: chipping.

-) It is dated from the end of 1400.

-) Transitive: -) 1. Obsolete meaning: to pare (bread) by cutting away its crust..

-) 2. To hew with a cutting tool, as an ax, chisel, adze, etc. 

One of the men was sitting on an upturned box beside the fire, waiting for the gently-humming kettle to boil; whilst the other was chipping wood outside the house.

E. Landor… The Bushman… 1847

… there was cold ham, and chipped beef, and sausages.

James Hall… Legends… 1869

-) 3. To cut one or more small pieces from (something); to break one or more fragments off; to cut or break into fragments; to reduce to chips.

-) Translation: astillar, in Spanish; ébrécher, in French; scheggiare, in Italian.

Near these relicks there is a defaced inscription… It was defaced, as we were informed, by two Frenchmen, who, because they could not read it themselves, chipped it off out of spite to the British travellers.

J. Galt… Voyages and travels… 1812

… the large blue dish for the cake is not chipped at the edges.

E. Carrington… Confessions… 1828

The rails fencing the lawn from what was termed the park, were rotten, chipped, broken down, or tied together with pack-thread.

E. Pickering… The Squire… 1837

One of the demonstrators dined with us upon a certain occasion, when a glass was observed to be slightly chipped at the rim, and a remark was made on the delicacy of the blow that had fractured so nicely without destroying the glass.

The Dollar Magazine… Vol. 2… 1842

The Old Red House was the same shadowy, mysterious looking place as heretofore. Though occupied, nothing had been done to sustain or decorate it; indeed, decay seemed going apace in its destruction. Its paint was still more chipped by wind and rain.

E. Meteyard… Lilian’s golden hours… 1858

-) 4. To cut or break (a small piece or a chip) from something.

-) With “off”, “from”, etc. 

As we walked on, many were the fragments of stones or of soil that Bob picked up, and, as he chipped them with his hammer, we discussed their nature, the order of formations to which they belonged, the metals whose ores they contained, or the chemical or other properties by which they were distinguished.

R. Douglas… Adventures… 1848

One sat up and chipped earth from his huge boots with an iron girder he grasped in his hand; the second rested on his elbow; the third whittled a pine tree into shape and made a smell of resin in the air.

H. Wells… The Food… 1903

-) 5. To diminish or shape by cutting away small portions; to make (a work) by chipping.

We have never seen a man who could take a round ball, and so chip it off on four sides as to make a square block, and have nothing left.

The Mechanic… Vol. 3… 1834

Agates are made into marbles at Oberstein by first chipping the pieces nearly round with a hammer, and then wearing them down upon the face of large grindstones.

American cyclopaedia… 1861

-) 6. (Of a chicken) to crack (the egg-shell).

There has it dwelt, since first it chipped the shell, and came forth from the clear brown egg.

The Sporting magazine… 1856

-) 7. (Of a player) to put in a chip or chips as one’s share of a stake; stake chips; hence, to make one’s contribution; to contribute.

-) Found only in the colloquial combination “chip in”. Also as intransitive verb.

-) Intransitive: -) 1. To make chipping strokes.

Peter opened the letter and read it. Then without a word, he gave it open to the Dozent. There was silence in the laboratory while the Dozent read it, silence except for his canary, which was chipping at a lump of sugar.

M. Rinehart… The Street… 1914

-) 2. (Of a thing) to break in one or more small pieces; to be chipped.

The old peasant so often mentioned in the preceding pages spoke of the inscription as originally cut or scratched upon a thin "tabulet" which hung from a projection on the headstone in the glen. Something like a projection still remains; the tablet is not to be found. The stone itself is of a white flaky substance, which has gradually chipped off, with the moisture of the grotto; and if the tablet were of the same material, this may account for its disappearance.

G. Darley… The labours of idleness… 1826

-) 3. To chip at: to aim a blow at, hit at; also, to banter.

-) It is also found with the omission of “at”, and equivalent to “to make (a person) the object of a joke”.

-) Words derived from CHIP: chipping, chipper, chipped, unchipped.

 

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