1882. H. W. Lucy, in Harper's Mag., April, 747. Any bore or ninny-*hammer who cared to invest a penny in a postage stamp could draw from the great man a post-card written in the well-known handwriting.
1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger's Sweetheart, 64. Who would have thought the old duffer such a ninny?
2. (Old Cant).—A whining beggar.—B. E. (c. 1696); New Cant. Dict. (1725); Dyche (1748).
Ninny-broth, subs. (old).—See
quot., 1696.
1696. Poor Robin [Nares]. How to make coffee, alias ninny broth.
1698-1700. Ward, London Spy, 1. (1706), i., 15. Being half choak'd with the Steem that arose from their Soot-colour'd ninny-broth, their stinking Breaths, and suffocating Fumes.
1708. Hudibras Redivivus, pt. 1. Their wounded consciences they heal With ninny-broth, o'er which they seek Some new religion ev'ry week.
Ninth. Ninth (or tenth[*]) part
of a man, subs. phr. (common).
A tailor. See Snip. [From the
proverb 'Nine tailors make a
man': whence Queen Elizabeth's
traditional address to a deputation
of eighteen tailors:—'God save
you, gentlemen both.']
- There exists literary usage for this
form. Unfortunately, however, the quotation, which ante-dated the first authority infra by fifty years or more, has been mislaid, and memory, though judicially certain as to its existence, fails as regards the reference.—J. S. F.
1763. Foote, Mayor of Garratt, ii., 30. A journeyman taylor. . . . This cross-leg'd cabbage-eating son of a cucumber, this whey-fac'd ninny, who is but the ninth part of a man.
1767. Ray, Proverbs [Bohn], 135. Nine tailors make but one man.
1838. Desmond, Stage Struck, 1. The most savage of hoaxes! instead of gallanting a goddess to our shores, I had the felicity to usher from the boat the ninth part of a man.
Nip, subs. (colloquial).-1. A
pinch.
2. (old).—A thief: specifically a cut-purse.—B. E. (c. 1696); Grose (1785).
1592. Greene, Third Part Conny-catching, in Works, x., 174. Away goes the young nip with the purse he got so easily.
1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in Wks. (Grosart), iii., 154. He that cuts the purse is called the nip. . . . The knife is called a cuttle-bung. Ibid., Sig. H. 3. They allot such countries to this band of foists, such townes to those, and such a city to so many nips.
1611. Middleton, Roaring Girle [Dodsley, Old Plays, vi., 113]. One of them is a nip, I took him in the twopenny gallery at the Fortune. Ibid., vi., 115. Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers, With all the devil's black guard.
1658. Honest Ghost, p. 231. Pimps, nips, and tints, prinados, highway standers, All which were my familiars.
3. (colloquial).—(a) See quot. 1808: hence (b) a sip; a small drink; a go (q.v.). Also nipper.
1606. Rollock, on 2 Thes. 140. If thou hast not laboured . . . looke that thou put not a nip in thy mouth. Ibid., 150. The Lord vouchsafes not a nip on them unless they worke.
1788. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Nyp or Nip. A half pint, a nip of ale; whence the nipperkin, a small vessel. Ibid. nyp-shop. The Peacock, in Gray's-Inn-lane, where Burton ale is sold in nyps.
1808. Jamieson, Dict., s.v. Nip. A small quantity of spirits; as a nip of whiskey.—generally half a glass. Ibid. A small bit of anything, as much as is nipped or broken off between the finger and thumb.
1848. Lowell, Biglow Papers [Bartlett]. Then it waz, 'Mister Sawin, sir, you're middlin' well now, be ye? Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye.'
