Nibble

Nibble (pronounced nib-uhl)

(1) To bite off small bits of something; to eat food by biting off small pieces.

(2) To bite, eat, or chew gently and in small amounts (often in the form “nibbled at”); to take dainty or tentative (especially when unsure of the taste) bites; an act or instance of nibbling.

(3) A small morsel of food.

(4) Snack food (allways (sweet or savory) in the plural as “nibbles” and usually served with drinks).

(5) In fishing, a response by a fish to the bait on a line (technically, the feeling of the fish tasting the bait but not yet “hooked”).

(6) In many contexts, a preliminary positive response or reaction such as an “expression of interest” to a proposal.

(7)  Of an idea or suggestion, tentatively or cautiously to consider.

(8) In moments of intimacy, sexually to stimulate a partner by the (gentle) use of the teeth on body parts (usually extremities) such as toes, finger tips, nipples or ear lobes, a subset of fetishists using this caressing as a prelude to acts such as biting, scratching or spanking.

(9) In computing, a unit of memory equal to half a byte, or four bits.

1425–1475: From the late Middle English nebillen (to peck away at, to sample, to take small bites) and thought related to the Middle Low German nibbelen (to gnaw; to pick with the beak), thus the presumption by most etymologists the word is probably of Dutch or Low German origin and akin to the modern Low German nibbeln (to gnaw), the Middle Dutch knibbelen (to gnaw) (and the source of the Dutch knibbelen (to cavail, squabble)) the Dutch nibbelen (to nibble) and the Saterland Frisian nibje (to nibble).  The noun (an act of nibbling) developed from the verb and appeared in the 1650s, extended in the mid nineteenth century to describe plates of "small bites or morsels.  The verb nosh came into use in New York in 1957 in the sense of “to snack between meals and was from the Yiddish nashn (nibble), from the Middle High German naschen, from the Old High German hnascon & nascon (to nibble), from the Proto-Germanic naskon & gnaskon.  The forms noshed & noshing soon emerged in casual use although “the nosh” had been used in the US military as a noun since 1917, meaning “a mess or canteen”; it was a clipping of “nosh-house” which in civilian slang described restaurants & cafés.  Nibble is a noun & verb, nibbled is a verb & adjective, nibbler is a noun, nibbling is a noun & verb and nibbleable & nibbly & nibblish are adjectives (although not all dictionaries list them as standard forms); the noun plural is nibbles.

Nibbles could also be described as tidbits (often wrongly used as titbits), bites, tastes, or crumbs.  In idiomatic use, “to get a nibble” is (analogous with a fish tentatively tasting the bait before swallowing the hook) to receive a response to an offer, suggestion, idea, advertisement etc.  “To nibble away at” describes processes similar to those illustrated by phrases such as “straw which broke the camel’s back” or “death of a thousand cuts”.  Rust for example “nibbles away” at metal and inflation “nibbles away” at savings and the value of money (unlike hyperinflation which, depending on the its extent, is better described as a process of erosion, decimation, destruction etc).  As a verb to nibble is also to find petty faults or make needlessly pedantic points.

Lindsay Lohan nibbling on a slice of watermelon.

In computing, a nibble was a unit of memory equal to half a byte, or four bits, it’s origin apparently in the late 1950s among the IBM engineers developing the mainframe architecture for the System 360 (the S/360, 1964), the fundamentals of which remain in use even now.  Engineers do have a sense of humor and “nibble” was chosen to represent half a byte, based on the homophony of byte and bite although more serious types (and there were a lot of them about at IBM) preferred half-byte or tetrade (“a group of four things”, from the Ancient Greek τετράς (tetrás)) and by the time the concept ended up in the hands of networking and communications engineers, it could also be a semi-octet, quartet or quadbit.  More linguistically adventurous types coined nybble as an alternative spelling (a tribute to the spelling of byte) and this encouraged others who developed a protocol for the exchange executed with four-bit packets which they labeled nabble, a nod to “babble”.  The word babble, despite the common belief, is unrelated to the Latin Babel, from Biblical Hebrew בָּבֶל‎ (bāḇel) (Babylon) and was from the Middle English babelen, from the Old English bæblian (which existed also as wæflian (foolishly to talk), from the Proto-West Germanic bablōn & wablōn, variants of babalōn, from the Proto-Germanic babalōną (to chatter), from a variety of primitive Indo-European sources which were various ways of expressing the idea of vague speech or mumbling, all of which etymologist suspect were onomatopoeic mimicking of the infantile sounds of babies, something forms appear in just about every known European language.

Lindsay Lohan at a table of nibbles.

In the early days of computing when memory of all types was expensive (and sometimes actually rare), nibbles were helpful because four-bit architecture was an economical way to implement processes and many of the early microprocessors, of which the Intel 4004 (1971) is probably the best remembered because it was the core of so many pocket calculators and despite the enormous advances during the last half-century, 4-bit microcontrollers remain in use, simply because something like a basic washing machine demands nothing more.  The programmers of the early mainframes were demanding more but the hardware to handle that didn’t then exist and the nibble was the optimal way to ensure the most characters could be contained in a given number of bytes, making computations faster and debugging easier although, in a classic work-around, some “nibbles” did grow to 8 bits, the trick invoked to add functionality while maintaining backward computability but the increasing muscularity of hardware soon rendered the approach obsolete.

Crooked Hillary Clinton, nibbling.

The noun nibbler means (1) someone who nibbles, (2) a tool for cutting sheet metal and (3) a fish of the sea chub subfamily Girellinae and (4) a technique for duplicating copying protected floppy diskettes.  Copy-protected diskettes were common in the 1980s and were an attempt by software developers to prevent privacy.  When programs were distributed in a multi-diskette pack, it was common practice to have copy protection applied to only one, this being the one required to undertake an installation or make the software operative; it was essentially the same idea as “product activation” in the internet age.  As an additional layer, some manufacturers would include a counter on an installation diskette which would permit the product to be installed only a set number of times.  The idea behind the name was that the hacks “nibbled away” at the security layer(s) and examples included CopyIIPC & CopyIIAT (for low & double (160-180-320-360-720 kB) & high (1.2-1.44 MB) density diskettes respectively and Fast Hack 'Em.  It was something of a power race because within hours of Microsoft introducing a proprietary 1.7 MB format in an attempt to defeat the pirates, hacks & cracks appeared on the bulletin boards.

Joe Biden "nibbling" and a fish nibbling on the dead skin cells of feet. 

In July 2023, Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) was observed at a public event “nibbling” on the jumpsuit of an infant girl being held in her moth’s arms.  Fox News, on the spot to record the nibble, claimed the unfortunate child was “scared” and while that may or may not be true, she certainly seemed not best pleased.  Fox News though were right that it was definitely a nibble and nibblin’ Joe used exactly the same action as the small (and presumably grateful) fish which live out their lives feasting on the dead skin cells of the feet of folk who pay a small sum to sit for a while and be nibbled.  For fish and us, it's a win-win situation.

Joe Biden and his wife Dr Jill Biden (b 1951) at a campaign stop, Council Bluffs, Iowa, 30 November, 2019.

Nibblin’ Joe had of course been seen before, photos of him enjoying his wife’s fingers circulating in December 2019 at the start of his No Malarkey bus tour laying out the groundwork for his campaign in the Democratic Party’s Iowa presidential caucuses the following February.  Whether the sight of him nibbling her fingers was responsible for his poor showing in the caucuses isn’t known but despite Pete Buttigieg (b 1982) gaining twice his support in Iowa, the nomination for 2020 was ultimately secured by Mr Biden (with the odd nudge from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which had decided they’d prefer to contest an election with someone who possibly was senile than with anyone who definitely was gay).

He was of course well known for being sniffin’ Joe, photographs of him leaning in, apparently to “sniff” the hair of women and girls (some young enough to be his great-granddaughters) circulating widely in the run-up to the 2020 election.  It was all very strange because it was such unusual behavior.  Had photographs appeared of a man of his age doing such things behind closed doors, it would have been a textbook case of public moral outrage but do so in public, knowing press and television cameras were focused on him and that sometimes the parents of the children were present, suggested a naïve innocence rather than anything distasteful.  Still, it was strange enough for the party hierarchy to discuss the matter with him and in a public statement, he acknowledged “things have changed” over the years and such tactility was no longer acceptable.  “I get it” he said.  Given the obvious discomfort displayed by some of the women sniffed, one might have thought he should have “got it” sooner.

Joe Biden and crooked Hillary Clinton, Scranton Airport, Pennsylvania, July 2016.

He’s also huggin’ Joe.  In July 2016, the greatest interest crooked Hillary Clinton (then in peak pantsuit mode) had in Joe Biden was thinking of some way he could be persuaded to serve as her secretary of state (foreign minister) once she’d enjoyed her landslide victory over Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021).  That may have accounted for the warmth of the welcome she offered when she waited at the bottom of the stairs to meet him at Scranton airport, Pennsylvania.  However, perhaps overcome with emotion (Scranton his childhood home), the hug she offered lingered longer than she would have liked, huggin’ Joe hanging on for some fifty seconds despite her twice “tapping out” (a double tap on the arm, the accepted non-verbal code to indicate a release is requested) and even trying to wriggle free from his grasp didn’t work.

Should the 2024 US presidential contest descend again to Biden vs Trump (something a majority of Americans seem resigned to rather than enthusiastic about), Mr Trump will again have to decide which moniker best suits his opponent.  In 2020 he used “sleepy Joe”, the unsubtle message denoting someone in advanced cognitive decline who was apt to need frequently to nap.  At the time, there were memes around the hair sniffing photographs using “creepy Joe” and it may have been tempting but Mr Trump’s own documented history of ungentlemanly conduct with women may have led his advisors to suggest he avoid casting that stone.  On that basis, “sniffin’ Joe”, “huggin’ Joe” and “nibblin Joe” are probably out too so it’s either stick with “sleepy Joe” or think of something new.  Whatever his flaws, Mr Trump has a good record of avoiding issues with narcotics and alcohol so the well publicized problems of Hunter Biden (b 1970) might offer some possibilities given the recent discovery of cocaine in the White House although there’s said to be no evidence linking the substance with any member of the Biden family.  In the run-up to the 2020 election he’d used “Basement Biden”, “Beijing Biden” & “Slow Joe” but none really captured the imagination in the way of “crooked Hillary”, “low energy Jeb”, “little Marco”, “mini Mike”, “Lying Ted” or “Fauxcahontas” (although the last one was coined by someone else and Mr Trump usually preferred “Pocahontas”).  He does of course have other matters to think about but the task will have been allocated to staff and it’ll be interesting to see if they conjure up anything fun.

Snack

Snack (pronounced snak)

(1) A small portion of food or drink or a light meal, especially one eaten between regular meals.

(2) In the phrase “go snack”, to share profits or returns (archaic).

(3) In slang, someone physically attractive and sexually desirable (regionally limited).

(4) To have a snack or light meal, especially between regular meals:

1300–1350: From the Middle English verb snacchen, snacche, snache & snak & noun snacche, snak & snakee (to snap at, bite, seize (as of dogs) and cognate with the Middle Dutch snacken (to snap (as of dogs), from snakken and a variant of snappen (to snap)) and the Norwegian dialect snaka (to snatch (as of animals)).  In many European languages, snack is used in the same sense though in Swedish technically it’s deverbal of snacka (to chat, to talk).  The pleasing recent noun snackette is either (1) A small shop or kiosk selling snacks or (2) smaller than usual snacks (the word often used by dieters to distinguish their snacks from the more indulgent choices of others).  The synonyms include morsel, refreshment, bite, eats, goodies, nibble, pickings & tidbit.  Snack is a noun, adjective & verb, snacking and snacked are verbs; the noun plural is snacks.

Cadbury Snack.

The original Middle English verb (to bite or snap (as of dogs), probably came either from the Middle Dutch or Flemish snacken (to snatch, snap; chatter), the source of which is uncertain although one etymologist traces it to a hypothetical Germanic imitative root snu- used to form words relating to the snout or nose.  The sense of "having a bite to eat; a morsel or light meal” dates from 1807.  The noun snack (a snatch or snap (especially that of a dog) developed from the verb and emerged circa 1400.  The meaning extended to "a snappish remark" by the 1550s and "a share, portion, part" by the 1680s (hence the now archaic expression “go snacks” which meant "share, divide; have a share in").  The familiar modern meaning "a small dish morsel to eat hastily" was first noted in 1757.  The first snack bar (a place selling snacks) seems to have opened in 1923 and the similar (often smaller, kiosk-type operations) snackettes were a creation of US commerce in the 1940s.  Snack bars could be either stand-alone businesses or something operating within a stadium, theatre, cinema etc.  The commercial plural form snax was coined in 1942 for the vending machine trade and the term “snack table” has been in use since circa 1950.

Nestlé Salted Caramel Munchies.

Functionally (though not etymologically) related was munchies (food or snack) from 1959, the plural of the 1917 munchie (snack eaten to satisfy hunger) from the 1816 verb munch (to eat; to chew).  The familiar (to some) phrase “got the munchies” in the sense of "craving for food after smoking weed (marijuana)" was US stoner slang which was first documented in 1971 but Nestlé corporation’s Munchies weren’t an opportunistic attempt to grab the attention of weed smokers.  Munchies pre-date the slang use of the word by over a decade, introduced in 1957 by the Mackintosh company, Nestlé acquiring the brand in 1988 when it acquired Rowntree Mackintosh and it’s not known if the slang use can be attributed to some stoner coming back from the shop with a bag-full of the snacks and telling his grateful companions “I’ve got the Munchies”.  Munchies were originally milk chocolates with a caramel and biscuit centre but the range has in recent years proliferated to include centres of mint fondant, chocolate fudge, cookie dough and salted caramel.  The latest variation has been to use a white chocolate shell, this described as a “limited-edition” but it’s presumed if demand exists, it will become a standard line.

Stocking up: Lindsay Lohan buying snacks, London, 2008.

Continuity

Continuity (pronounced kon-tn-oo-i-tee or kon-tn-yoo-i-tee)

(1) The state or quality of being continuous; logical sequence, cohesion or connection; lack of interruption.

(2) A continuous or connected whole.

(3) In political science, as “continuity theory”, an approach to twentieth century German historiography which focuses on structural and sociological continuities between eras (including pre-twentieth century influences and traditions).

(4) In narratology, a narrative device in episodic fiction where previous and/or future events in a series of stories are accounted for in present stories.

(5) As bicontinuity (the sate of being bicontinuous), (1) in topology: homeomorphic (a continuous bijection from one topological space to another, with continuous inverse) and (2) in physics, chemistry (of a liquid mixture), being a continuous phase composed of two immiscible liquids interacting through rapidly changing hydrogen bonds.

(6) In film production, as “continuity girl” (the now archaic title in film production (now called “continuity supervisor” or “script supervisor”)) for the person responsible for ensuring the details in each scene conform to the continuity of the narrative.

(7) In film production, the scenario (in the industry jargon a synonym of “continuity”) of script, scenes, camera angles, details of verisimilitude etc, in the sequence in which they should appear in the final cut.

(8) In fiction (especially in television series but also in film and literature), as “continuity nod”, a reference, to part of the plot of a previous series, volume, episode etc.

(9) In audio & visual production (radio, podcasts, television, internet et al), the spoken part of a script that which provides introductory, transitional or concluding material in non-dramatic (documentaries and such) programmes (some production houses include in their staff establishment the position “continuity announcer”).

(10) In film projection, the continuous projection of a film, using automatic rewind.

(11) In mathematics, a characteristic property of a continuous function.

(12) In mathematics, as semicontinuity (of a function), the state of being semicontinuous (that it is continuous almost everywhere, except at certain points at which it is either upper semi-continuous or lower semi-continuous).

(13) In mathematics, as equicontinuity, (of a family of functions), the state of being equicontinuous (such that all members are continuous, with equal variation in a given neighborhood).  The Lipschitz continuity was named after German mathematician Rudolf Lipschitz (1832–1903); the Scott continuity was named after US logician Dana Scott (b 1932).

(14) In mathematics, as hemicontinuity, the state of being hemicontinuous (having the property that if a sequence of points in the domain of a function converges to a point L, then either the sequence of sets that are the images of those points contains a sequence that converges to a point that is in the image of L, or, alternatively, for every element in the image of L, there will be a sub-sequence in the domain whose image contains a convergent sequence to that element.

(15) In marketing, in the plural, as “continuities”, sets of merchandise, given away for free or sold cheaply as promotional tool (the idea being the continuity of the customers returning).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English continuite (uninterrupted connection of parts in space or time), from the Old & Middle French continuité, from the Latin continuitatem (nominative continuitās) (a connected series (the construct being continu(us) (continuous) + -itās (equivalent to the English continu(e) +‎ -ity), from continuus (joining, connecting with something; following one after another) from the intransitive verb continere (to be uninterrupted (literally “to hang together”).  The –ity suffix was from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it.  It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th).  It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description.  Continuity is a noun, continuance, & continuousness are nouns, continue is a verb, continuous & continual are adjectives and continually is an adverb; the noun plural is continuities.

The adjective continuous (characterized by continuity, not affected by disconnection or interruption) dates from the 1640s and was from either the French continueus or directly from the Latin continuus.  The verb continue (was in use by at least the mid-fourteenth century) in the form contynuen (maintain, sustain, preserve) which by the late 1300s has assumed the meaning “go forward or onward; persevere in”.  It was from the thirteenth century Old French continuer and directly from Latin continuare (join together in uninterrupted succession, make or be continuous, do successively one after another), from continuus.  The sense of “to carry on from the point of suspension” emerged early in the fifteenth century while the meaning “to remain in a state, place, or office” dates from the early 1400s, the transitive sense of “to extend from one point to another” was first documented in the 1660s.  The word entered the legal lexicon with the meaning “to postpone a hearing or trial” in the mid fifteenth century.

The noun continuation (act or fact of continuing or prolonging; extension in time or space) dates from the late 1300s, from the thirteenth century Old French continuation and directly from the Latin continuationem (nominative continuatio) (a following of one thing after another), a noun of action from past-participle stem of continuare.  The adjective continual was from the early fourteenth century continuell (proceeding without interruption or cessation; often repeated, very frequent), from the twelfth century Old French continuel and directly from the Latin continuus.  The noun continuance (perseverance, a keeping up, a going on) dates from the mid-fourteenth century, from the thirteenth century Old French continuance, from continuer.  Continuance seems to have been the first of the family to appear in the terminology of legal proceedings, used since the late fourteenth century in the sense of “a holding on or remaining in a particular state”, in courts this by the early fifteenth had extended to “the deferring of a trial or hearing to a future date” and in some jurisdictions lawyers to this day still file an “application for continuation”.  The now widely used discontinuation (of legal proceedings; of a product range etc) has existed since at least the 1610s in the sense of “interruption of continuity, separation of parts which form a connected series” and was from the fourteenth century French discontinuation, from the Medieval Latin discontinuationem (nominative discontinuatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of discontinuare.

Page 1 of IMDb's (Internet Movie Database) listing of discontinuities in Mean Girls (2004).

A discontinuity: In Mean Girls, a donut (doughnut) appeared with a large bite taken from it while a few seconds later it had endured just a nibble.

In film production, the job title “continuity girl” seems to have been retired in favor of “continuity supervisor” or “script supervisor”, one of the terms culled in the process of gender neutrality which also claimed most of the “best boys” (they’re now styled with titles such as “assistant chief lighting technician” or “second lighting technician”.  Whether myth or not, the industry legend is the “best boy” job title really did begin with the request “give me your best boy” although that wasn’t something as ominous as now it may sound.  The first known reference to a continuity girl in a film’s credits was in the US 1918 and the job involved ensuring the “continuity” (in the industry “scenario” is synonymous) of the final cut appeared as a seamless narrative.  The job was required because although a single scene in a film might appear to be a contiguous few minutes, the parts assembled in the editing process to produce it may be made up of takes shot days or even months weeks and possibly in different places.  Among a myriad of tasks, what a continuity girl had to do was maintain a database with the details of each piece of film (vital for the editing process) and ensure the details of each shot (clothes, haircuts, props (including their exact placement) and environment (climate, time of day etc) are in accordance with the previous footage.  The detail can be as simple as the time displayed on a wall clock and it matters because there’s a minor industry of film buffs who go through things frame-by-frame looking for discontinuities, all of which gleefully they’ll catalogue on various internet sites.

Three covers used for Leah McLaren’s The Continuity Girl (2007, left); not all Chick lit titles used vibrant or pastel shades in the cover art.  The Continuity Girl (2018, right) by Dr Patrick Kincaid (b 1966) is an unrelated title.

The Continuity Girl (2007) was the debut novel of Canadian journalist Leah McLaren (b 1975), the protagonist being a continuity girl named Meredith Moore.  A classic piece of Chick lit (the construct being chick (slang for “a young woman” + lit(erature)), a now unfashionable term describing novels focused on women and their feelings) the plotline involves Ms Moore’s biological clock tick-tocking to the psychological moment on her 35^th birthday: she wakes up feeling a sudden acute yearning for a baby.  In a Chick lit sort of way, her solution was to leave her predictably pleasant Canadian life and head for London where she plans to select a man on the basis of her assessment of his genetic suitability for breeding, seduce him and, in the way these things happen, fall pregnant.  Things of course don’t work out quite that effortlessly but, being Chick lit, there’s much self-realization, self-discovery and self-expression on the path to a happy ending.

In political science, “continuity theory” is an approach (in two aspects) to twentieth century German historiography which focuses on structural and sociological continuities between eras (including pre-twentieth century influences and traditions).  The first aspect was the notion there existed “continuity” in the persistent influence of long-term social, political, cultural, and institutional developments in German history, dating at least from the time of Martin Luther (1483–1546) contributed to the particular nature of Imperial Germany (1871-1918), the failure of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and the Führerprinzip (Leader Principle) which, structurally, was the distinguishing feature of the Third Reich (1933-1945).  This idea has underpinned a number of major historical studies but has always been contested because another faction (which has at times included a significant proportion of the German population) which argues that Nazism was uniquely radical and an aberration in the nation’s history.  Most controversially, some proponents of continuity theory extend the application to the post war years, examining how former Nazis, neo-Nazis and their ideologies persisted (and at times have flourished) both in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany (1949-1990)) and the unified state formed 1990 after the FRG absorbed the GDR (German Democratic Republic (the old East Germany)).

Adolf Hitler (left) looking at Ernst Röhm (right), Nürnberg, 3 September 1933.  Some nine months later, Hitler would order Röhm's discontinuation (murder).  Photograph from the Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives), Bild (picture) 146-1982-159-22A.

The theory’s other aspect was structural and was essentially an analysis of the extent to which the Nazi state operated under the constitutional and administrative arrangements inherited from the Weimar Republic, the state which Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) claimed “his” National Socialist revolution had overthrown.  The indisputable fact that the Nazi dictatorship was fundamentally different from Weimar at the time obscured the continuity but maintaining the Weimar constitution was hardly unique.  Hitler choose also to adapt the existing mixed economic model, something which upset some of the more idealistic souls in his movement who had taken seriously the “socialist” bit in “National Socialism” and led to the infamous Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird) a purge executed between 30 June-2 July 1934, when the regime carried out a number of extrajudicial executions, ostensibly to crush what was referred to as “the Röhm Putsch” (Ernst Röhm (1887–1934; chief of the Sturmabteilung (the stormtroopers (the SA)), head of the four-million strong SA had certainly in the past hinted at one but there’s no doubt no such thing was imminent).

The USGS’s (US Geological Survey (1879)) depiction of the Mohorovičić discontinuity (the Moho).

The Mohorovičić discontinuity (which geologists tend to call “the Moho”) is the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle, the extent defined by the distinct change in velocity of seismic waves as they pass through changing densities of rock.  The phenomenon is named after Croatian geophysicist Andrija Mohorovičić (1857–1936; one of the seminar figures in modern seismology), who first published his findings (based on seismographic observations of shallow-focus earthquakes) in 1909.

Nipple

Nipple (pronounced nip-uhl)

(1) In anatomy, the small, conical projection near the center of the areola of each mammary gland (breast); also called mamilla, papilla or teat.  In females, the nipple contains the outlets of the milk ducts.

(2) Something resembling (often in scaled-up form) a female’s niipple, as the mouthpiece of a nursing bottle or pacifier (in some places an informal word for a pacifier).

(3) Any device resembling a nipple in shape or function.

(4) A mechanical device through which liquids or gases can be passed in a regulated manner; as grease nipple a small drilled bush, usually screwed into a bearing (or other component needing periodic replenishment of a greasing agent) through which grease is introduced.

(5) In plumbing & gas-fitting, a short piece of pipe with threads on each end, used for joining valves.

(6) Any small physical protrusion on an automotive, a machine part or any other part that fits into a groove on another part (now rare).

(7) In computer hardware, the pointing device in the centre of the keyboard of certain laptops, partially fulfilling the functionality of a mouse, trackball or track-pad (although some (usually male) users insist it is called “the clit”).

(8) In pre-modern ballistics, a perforated segment that fits into part of the breech of a muzzle-loading gun, on which the percussion cap is fixed.

(9) In the design of bicycles, an internally threaded piece which holds a bicycle spoke in place on the rim.

(10) To fit (a baby's bottle etc) with a nipple (archaic).

(11) To give one's nipple to (a baby) to allow breastfeeding (archaic).

1520–1530: From the Middle English nipple, from the earlier neble, nibble, nible & nepil (all of which may be derived from nib & neb (tip; point).  The Old English nypel (elephant’s trunk) was formed analogously as “a protuberance from one's neb”.  The late twelfth century pap & pappe (nipple of a woman's breast) was first attested in Northern and Midlands writing, probably from a Scandinavian source (there’s no record in the Old Norse but there was the dialectal Swedish pappe), from the primitive Indo-European imitative root pap- (to swell), the source also of the Latin papilla (nipple) which may have influenced the English papula (a swelling, pimple) and the Lithuanian papas (nipple).  The spellings neple, nypil, nyppell, neapel, neaple, neble and all obsolete.  Nipple is a noun & verb, nippling is a verb and nippleless & nippled are adjectives; the noun plural is nipples.

One extinct verb which, perhaps surprisingly, wasn’t revived even after it became apparent trends of use on the internet suggested it might be helpful, was expapillate (bare the breasts to the nipples), identified by the outstandingly good OnlineEtymology Dictionary as an entry in an early English "dictionary", published in eleven editions between 1623 and the 1650s.  The book was neither a prescriptive or descriptive work encompassing the whole language but was described as “An Interpreter of Hard English Words”, an approach others later took including Wilfred Funk (1883–1965) in his Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories (1950), the idea being to focus on the less known or more obscure.  The construct of expapillate was ex- + papillate.  The ex- prefix was from the Middle English, from words borrowed from the Middle French, from the Latin ex (out of, from), from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs- (out).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex) (out of, from), the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out) & the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  The “x” in “ex-“, sometimes is elided before certain constants, reduced to e- (eg ejaculate).  The Latin papillate was the vocative masculine singular of papillātus (having nipples or buds; shaped like a nipple or bud) and was used in English as a transitive verb (to cover with papillae) and intransitive verb (to take the form of a papilla, or of papillae).

In 1974, The British Medical Journal (BMJ) used the term "guitar nipple" to describe "the irritation to the breast that can occur from the pressure of the guitar against the body."  That was indicative of the trend in the English-speaking world for newly-identified (and sometimes novel) conditions to be constructed with English elements, rather than the Latin historically used.  In the same spirit, two years later a contributor to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) was more imaginative still, coining "hot pants syndrome" when documenting cases in which a burn to the skin had been induced by a patient carrying a battery-powered transistor radio in the pocket of their trousers.  There was also in 1978 the New England Journal of Medicine's (NEJM) "disco digit" which referred to "a sore or infected finger caused by too much finger snapping while dancing."    

Jaguar tool kit supplied with 1966 E-Type (XKE).  The grease gun (left) was used to force grease into various components through grease nipples.  This was a regular part of automobile maintenance until recent decades and is still a feature of the maintenance schedules of heavy vehicles and machinery.

Until the 1970s, it was common for cars to need periodic “greasing” of certain components, a process which involved attaching a “grease gun” to a “grease nipple” which was permanently mounted to the relevant part and manually, the gun (usually a type of plunger) was used to force grease through the nipple.  This was undertaken either by owners, chauffeurs or mechanics at service stations who routinely would perform an “oil and grease” (changing the engine (and sometimes the gearbox and differential) oil, replacing the filter(s) and greasing all required grease points.  On more expensive vehicles, “one-shot lubrication” systems (known also as centralized lubrication systems (CLS) or automated lubrication systems (ALS) were introduced during the 1920s, the technology adapted from those used in aviation.  Although some attempts were made to create wholly automated systems, the most widely used were those which incorporated a foot pump for the driver to press at specified intervals; this action forced grease from a central reservoir to the required points.  Being a sealed system, this meant that nowhere in the system were grease nipples required (although some may still have been fitted to parts which required less frequent attention.  ALS systems remain common in many places including heavy machinery, ships and the industrial plant used in factories, power plants etc.

The standard grease nipple used on the Jaguar E-Type (XKE) (left) and a diagram with a legend listing the E-Type's oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid and grease nipple locations.  The grease nipples are indicated by the obelus (†).  In automobiles, by the 1970s the need for multiple grease points or one-shot lubrication had begun to be eliminated (although some older designs maintained the legacy for decades) as advances in metallurgy and lubrication technology permitted the development of sealed, maintenance-free components which are “packed with grease" and thus “lubricated for life”.  However, for heavy-duty machines such as trucks and earth-moving equipment operating in adverse conditions, there are often still components demanding regular greasing and thus grease nipples are still a thing.

Also a thing is the “nipple orgasm”, at least for those for whom a nipple is a “hardwired erogenous zone” responsive to stimulation.  Although in humans orgasms are typically thought of as a ejaculative, vaginal or clitoral phenomenon, sexologists list more than a dozen types, varying in instance or intensity based on the individual, the circumstances and sensitivity to stimulation.  When warming to the topic, these specialists will also discuss the details of “energetic orgasms” (which can, without physical touch, be triggered by meditation or fantasy) and “sleep orgasms”, said to have been experienced by an “estimated” 37% of women and 83% of men.  Quite how those numbers were obtained isn’t clear but helpfully, in 2011, New Jersey-based neuroscientist, psychotherapist & sex therapist Dr Nan Wise (b 1967) undertook a study to reveal how nipple stimulation affects the brain.  What Dr Wise wanted to build on was the existing understanding “…the clitoris, vagina and cervix are mapped on the genital sensory cortex”, something which sits between the brain’s two hemispheres and which she labels “hedonistic pleasure zone” or, more illustratively “the crotch of the brain”.

What Dr Wise did was have the study’s subjects stimulated with various mental fantasies while in an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine, allowing her team to observe how distinct parts of the brain responded to various experiences.  The results were generally in line with expectations except that nipple stimulation proved an outlier.  While her hypothesis had been there would have been activity in the brain region associated with chest sensation (the theory being nipple orgasms might occur because stimulation of the organ releases oxytocin, a hormone that can cause uterine contractions, potentially leading to vaginal orgasm), instead it was found nipple stimulation activated the genital sensory cortex itself, leading Dr Wise to conclude: “The nipples are a hardwired erogenous zone, like the genitals, when nipples are stimulated, the brain gets activated, and regions processing the sensation communicate with those responsible for pleasure.”  This tied in with one of the accepted dictums in neuroscience: “neurons that fire together wire together” and the study’s findings do seem to suggest it is plausible there exists a neural pathway between the nipples and the genitals.  Sexologists however caution individual responses will vary and techniques which produce pleasing results for one will induce no response in others.  So, YMMV (your mileage many vary) and the sexologists recommend experimentation.

The SKIMS Nipple Bra

Wearing it well: Kim Kardashian in SKIMS "nipple bra"

The admirable (and much admired) Kim Kardashian (b 1980) in October 2023 announced the latest addition to her SKIMS product line: a bra with “built in” nipples, designed to be prominent enough obviously to protrude through clothing.  Said to offer the “ultimate shock factor” (although after the shocks of the last decade-odd, some of which members of the Kardashian clan have instigated, that may be hyperbolic) the viewer response suggested many weren’t certain whether product was real or a gimmick designed to attract publicity.  It certainly attracted publicity but turned out to be a real with a SKIMS' part number.  Even if the concept wasn't as “innovative” as claimed, the promotional approach in the video certainly was, the spin being that if women can don a bra to emulate one of the better known consequences of cold weather, the psychological effect might be such that they’ll be less inclined to turn on (or up) the air-conditioner, thus reducing energy use, thereby lowering carbon emissions, meaning a lesser contribution to the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ (and other greenhouse gasses) which causes accelerated climate change including higher temperatures.  That seems to be drawing a long bow but doubtlessly somewhere there will be published research which can be spun to support (or at least not disprove) each of the steps in the Kardashian logic.

As Ms Kardashian put it: “The earth’s temperature is getting hotter and hotter. Sea levels are rising. The ice sheets are shrinking. I’m no scientist, but I believe everyone can do their skillset to do their part.  That’s why I’m introducing a brand-new bra with a built-in nipple so matter how hot it is, you’ll always look cold.  Some days are hard but these nipples are harder. And unlike the icebergs, these aren’t going anywhere.”  The bra will be available in six colors and a stated “10% of sales” (the exact math of that calculation not disclosed) will be given in a “one off donation” to 1% for the Planet (a multi-national collective of businesses pledged to gifting at least 1% of the annual revenue to “environmental causes”).  So it sounds like a real product with a real part-number (not yet listed) but there were those who thought the release date being Halloween (October 31) suggested it might not be wholly serious.  Even if not, it was a good promotional video, the only opportunity missed being Ms Kardashian should first have appeared in a scientist's white lab coat, peeling it off as she spoke the words "I'm no scientist".

The 1970s: Rudi's sheer bra (left & right) and the original Nipple Bra.

It’s actually not a new idea.  In the early 1970s, several manufacturers advertised a line of bras with cups in a sheer fabric which offered coverage and support (within a small size spectrum) but clung to the nipples' definition, the most celebrated being those of Austrian-born Rudolf "Rudi" Gernreich (1922–1985), remembered as the "designer" of the "monokini" (ie a bikini supplied without the top part).  This approach was for those who wanted to display the profile of their own nipples.  The "Nipple Bra" offered enhanced engineering was athe ancestor of the SKIMS bra in that rather than using, as Herr Gernreich did, the human body's "built-in" nipples, it provided some.  The pitch all those decades ago was aimed at those who wanted to look “provocative” and in 1975 to achieve that the “Nipple Bra” cost US$20 (US$114.42 adjusted for 2023) so Ms Kardashian setting her price at US$120.00 seems not unreasonable.  The somewhat obtuse contribution to averting climate change aside, reaction to the product included the observation the bra will provide permanently “perfectly aligned nipples”, something not always achieved by the real things because, like most body parts, between left and right, there’s often some variation in size, shape, direction or distance from the ground.  Like many aspects of structural engineering, “perfect alignment” is achieved often with slight adjustments to variables like strap length.

Rudi not required: Lindsay Lohan displays perfect alignment, Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California, 2011.

In the United States, patent law exists to protect inventions, processes, and methods rather than abstract ideas and the general criteria (interpreted with some latitude) for eligibility is that an invention should be novel, non-obvious, and useful.  What does qualify is the implementation or embodiment of an idea in a tangible form so while a mere thought or concept can't be patented, a specific application or embodiment of that idea can be and this includes a new product, process, machine, or composition of matter.  Within all that, patents can be granted to cover improvements made to existing inventions.  Whether SKIMS have applied for or been granted a patent isn't clear but several for products in this vein have been granted over the last 50-odd years.  On 24 August 1976 Mr Jakob E. Schmidt of Charlestown, Indiana was granted U.S. patent #3976083 (Brassiere Having Simulated Nipples) as well as #4241737 & #4127128 covering “Brassiere Having Simulated Nipples and Attachable-Detachable Nipple Simulators”.

Conceptual drawing supplied with application for patent #3976083 (Brassiere Having Simulated Nipples), granted 24 August 1976.  The patent expired 24 August 1993.

The abstract filed with the application for #3976083 included: A brassiere is disclosed having cups which are provided with a nipple-like protuberance simulating the bulge of a natural nipple. The nipple-like bulge or protuberance may be a built-in component of the brassiere, usually situated under the fabric of the cup; a component which is permanently attached to the external surface of the brassiere cop; or an individual structure which may be attached to or detached from the brassiere cup as will, by means of several linkage and attachment mechanisms.  Simulated nipples for a brassiere would offer an acceptable compromise for ladies who do not wish to go without a brassiere and a welcome release from the subconscious effects of the suppression brought on by wearing brassieres of the types variously available, which obliterate the nipple.  That’s informative but Ms Kardashian might have phrased things a little differently. 

A nipple patch (left), the nipple patch writ large to function as a special-purpose bra (centre) and the advertising concept (right) which could be used by the manufacturers of either the "nipple bra" or the "nipple patch".  All that would be required is transposing the photographs, depending on whether the object was to display or conceal.

However, while one niche market will like the idea of being “so provocative”, there are others who find the sight of their own nipples “too provocative” and for this niche, there are ranges of products which offer coverage and concealment, smoothing away any suggestion of a nipple with patches which can be worn under bras with cups of even the most sheer fabric.  Self-adhesive (using a skin-friendly temporary glue), they can also be used without a bra and the same technology has been adapted to larger-scale units which actually function as a bra.  Marketed as being ideal to be used when wearing “backless” dresses or tops, they’re also said to be easier to use than the “fashion tape” (better known in the industry as “booby tape” or “tit tape”), especially if being self-applied.  Helpfully, if one changes one’s mind after having smoothed away the nipples, stick-on nipples are available in a range of styles and colors.