What does clipping mean?
A clipping is a small piece that has been cut or trimmed away from something larger — a curl of hair, a sliver of nail, a snip of hedge, or an article cut from a newspaper. In everyday use it most often appears in the plural, as in 'grass clippings' or 'nail clippings', referring to the modest debris left behind by grooming or gardening. A related sense preserves a piece of print media: a press clipping is an article saved from a newspaper or magazine, once the standard way to archive coverage before digital archives existed. Linguistics borrows the term too, using 'clipping' to describe a common way new words are born — by shortening a longer one, as when 'influenza' became 'flu' or 'advertisement' became 'ad'. Across all its senses, the word carries a practical, slightly humble connotation: clippings are usually small, incidental leftovers rather than prized objects, though a cherished newspaper clipping can hold great sentimental value.
nounA clipping is a small piece cut or trimmed off something, such as a snippet of hair, a hedge trimming, or a newspaper article cut from a publication. It also refers to a word formed by shortening a longer word, such as 'ad' from 'advertisement'.
- A small piece cut or trimmed off something, especially hair, nails, plants, or paper.
- An article or item cut from a newspaper, magazine, or other printed source.
- In linguistics, a word created by shortening a longer word without changing its meaning (e.g. 'ad' from 'advertisement', 'flu' from 'influenza').
"She pressed the yellowed newspaper clipping of her grandfather's obituary into the family album."
"He swept up the grass clippings after mowing the lawn."
"Linguists note that 'blog' is a clipping of 'weblog'."
Standard plural, used especially for collections of small cut pieces such as hair, nails, grass, or newspaper articles.
"She collected the rose clippings to dry for potpourri."
The word 'ad' is itself a clipping — so every time you shorten a word, you're creating a linguistic clipping, just like the ones piling up under your nail trimmer.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of clipping
Clipping derives from the verb 'clip', meaning to cut or shear, which entered Middle English from Old Norse 'klippa' in the thirteenth century. The noun form arose naturally to describe the piece removed by such cutting, with recorded use by the sixteenth century. It shares its Germanic root with related Scandinavian and Germanic words for cutting and shearing, and is unrelated to the later sense of 'clip' as a fastener, which developed separately.
Related word forms
How clipping is actually used
When referring to multiple small pieces cut off, the plural 'clippings' is standard and often used in compound contexts like 'grass clippings' or 'nail clippings'. The linguistic sense is more technical and appears mainly in discussions of morphology and word formation.
Easily confused with clipping
A clip is the act of cutting or a fastening device, while a clipping is the piece of material that results from that cut.