Forms: 6 tippo, 7– tip. Pa. t. and pple. tipped, tipt. [ME. (?) and 16th c. tippe agrees in form and sense with Du., LG., mod.Ger. tippen, Sw. tippa to strike, poke or touch smartly or lightly; of obscure origin, but perhaps from the same Teut. root as TIP sb.1, q.v. Of this TIP sb.2 is app. a derivative. It is not certain that senses 2 and 3 belong to the same word; sense 2 might be directly from tiptoe; but cf. ON. tifa-sk ‘to move the feet quickly, to trip,’ which Falk and Torp incline to refer to the same root.)
1. trans. To strike or hit smartly but lightly; to give a slight blow, knock, or touch to; to tap noiselessly.
[Quot. a. 1225, in TIP sb.1 1 b, may perh. belong here with the sense ‘until the need or necessity strikes or hits.’]
1567. Golding, Ovid’s Met., V. 57 b. One Cromis tipped of his head [v. Fab. i. 104. Huic Cromis … Decutit ense caput.]: his head cut off streight way Vpon the Altar fell.
1579. Gosson, Apol. Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 64. Libels, which are but clay, and rattle on mine armour, or tippe me on the shinnes.
a. 1607. J. Raynolds, Proph. Haggai, x. (1649), 114. To keep them [their sheep] in by threatning them, and a little tipping them.
1708. Reply to Bickerstaff Detected, in Swift’s Wks. (1755), II. I. 166. A third rogue tips me by the elbow, and wonders, how I have the conscience [etc.].
1840. Thackeray, Bedford-Row Conspir., ii. [He] felt himself suddenly tipped on the shoulder.
b. Cricket. To hit (a ball) with the edge of the bat when attempting a drive, so that it glances off.
Hence Tip-and-run, a form of cricket in which the batsman is obliged to run if he hits the ball ever so lightly.
2. intr. To step lightly; to trip; to walk mincingly, or on tiptoe; also fig.
1819. Blackw. Mag., V. 401/2. The shortened notes more tripsomely tipped over than in the modern airs.
1881. Lucy B. Walford, Dick Netherby, v. 49. The sicht o’ her … tippin’ up to her chair … garred me lauch sae.
1890. Harper’s Mag., Aug., 390/2. He stopped breathlessly, and then tipped on cautiously, keeping the encircling line of bushes between him and the carriage.
3. Mus. (See TIPPING vbl. sb.3 b.)
4. ‘To toss, as carded hair, so that it will fall in tufts’ (Funk’s Stand. Dict., 1895): see TIPPING vbl. sb.3 c.
