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nipped (in)

Arctic

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

adj.

of ships, caught and held, and sometimes, especially with older wooden vessels, utterly crushed, by the coming together of two ice-floes.

See: nip

Quotations

1850

Penny had passed a long way inside of the spot the steamers had been beset and nipped in; and he witnessed a sight which, although constantly taking place, is seldom seen--the entire dissolution of an enormous ice-berg.

1861

In the autumn of 1859 the Kitty, of Newcastle, was nipped in the ice and lost in Hudson's Bay, while taking stores out to York Factory.

1909

Two years ago the ships bound for "Outside" got nipped in early ice and were forced to winter at Herschel all unprepared.

1937

The "Fort James," a Company schooner, was "nipped" in the ice at Tuktuk, on the Western Arctic coast, 4000 miles from the nearest dry-dock.