chip
/tʃɪp
/- Jabbing at the wood, they remove chips three to six inches tong.
- Nests are lined with bark chips or wood shavings or are a shallow cup made of roots, leaves and other plant fibers.
- The landowner gets quick cash, the company gets wood for chips, and workers at local sawmills get laid off.
Synonyms
- There were no obvious tool marks, chips or defects, and the finish was perfectly consistent down to the sudden transition at the base of every fold.
- If you're not prepared to rigorously keep up that pristine appearance, then the ensuing scuff marks, chips and cracks are sadly all too obvious.
- It's a good way to discover scratches, chips and dents early.
Synonyms
- Usually I don't eat potato but fish without chips by the sea would be silly and my son eats most of them.
- Stir again then serve with potatoes, chips, rice or pasta.
- Low-fat oven chips are both less hassle to cook and significantly lower in calories than conventional, deep-fried chips.
Synonyms
- Many foods, including chips, doughnuts, and fritters, are cooked this way.
- Beer cans were everywhere, along with crumbs of chips, leftover pizzas, and popcorn.
- Current integrated circuits, or computer chips, contain about 100 million transistors each.
- The paper describes the proper structure for a new kind of metal electrode to accompany novel insulating materials in transistors on computer chips.
- That was a mercenary term for a poker game with fake chips, one just played for relaxation.
- I thought maybe he'd taken a sudden interest in sewing but no - he intends to use them as gambling chips for poker games over at the other hotel.
- A poker player with lots of chips can force the game.
Synonyms
- More often than not you'll leave the next shot short with your chip or putt, and you'll probably be long with the next.
- He hit a poor tee shot, required two chips to find the green and then two-putted from 10 feet.
- If a player gets too aggressive on a downhill putt on one of those greens, his next shot could be a chip or a pitch from the fairway.
- A small hand shovel was leaning against the dirt wall in front of him and Eron picked it up and began chipping away portions of the wall.
- That afternoon I'd chipped my own pieces off the Wall.
- A second test involves chipping small sections of concrete from the floor in several areas.
Synonyms
- Bollards look unsightly with their paints all chipped off.
- The lock had the appearance of a half - rusted mailbox; the wall it belonged to also owned a door with most of the paint chipped off.
- Tables were overturned, the wood chipped off in jagged points with their legs snapped off and gnawed on.
Synonyms
- This would be repeated until the rock was chipped down to the approximate size and shape of one of the few dozen letters in the flatumm alphabet.
- Once cooled, the outer clay is chipped away and the carbonized core reamed out, with the casting filed and chased.
- It took three or four weekends to chip enough stone for one weekend's block laying.
Synonyms
- When this happens, put first chipped potato in carefully so it doesn't splash.
- When served with Irish chipped potatoes and a perky burst of baby organic spinach, there are few finer Irish meals.
- At the far end, Kanu shimmies outside the box, makes room for a shot and tries to chip the ball into the top left-hand corner.
- The president was in the small putting green outside the Oval Office chipping golf balls and whining - he did this a lot - to his aides.
- Beckham adroitly chips a dangerous ball into the box - who does he think he is, Zidane?
Phrases
a chip off the old block
a chip on one's shoulder
have had one's chips
when the chips are down
Phrasal verbs
chip away at
chip in (or chip something in)
Origin
Middle English: related to Old English forcippian 'cut off'.
The word chip was probably formed from an Old English word, forchippian, ‘to cut off’. A person who is thought to resemble one of their parents in character or behaviour can be described as a chip off the old block. The phrase was originally found in the forms chip of the same block and chip of the old block, so that the person appeared made from the same material. To have a chip on your shoulder is to be aggressively sensitive about something, usually some long-standing grievance or cause of resentment. The expression is first recorded in American English. An explanation can be found in an early example from the Long Island Telegraph of 20 May 1830: ‘When two churlish boys were determined to fight, a chip [of wood] would be placed on the shoulder of one, and the other demanded to knock it off at his peril.’Another meaning of chip is ‘a counter used in gambling games, representing money’, and such gambling chips, especially as used in the game of poker, feature in a number of common phrases. If someone has had their chips, they are beaten or out of contention. The idea is of having run out of gambling counters or chips with which to place a stake. Similarly, when the chips are down you find yourself in a very serious and difficult situation. To cash in your chips is to die—you are no longer ‘in the game’.
Deep-fried slices of potato have been known as chips since the time of Dickens. You might think of the phrase cheap as chips as being a recent invention, but it, too, goes back to at least the 1850s, when it was used in an advert in The Times.