snip
Other forms: snipped; snipping; snips
To snip is to cut with short, quick strokes, the way you'd snip your bangs in the mirror, or snip off a loose thread hanging from your jacket.
A gardener snips dead blooms from a plant so new ones can grow, and a dog groomer carefully snips the hair covering your terrier's face so she can see where she's going. Snip is also a noun: "I saved a snip of the baby's hair to put in your scrapbook." The noun came first, initially meaning "a small piece of cut out cloth." In the 16th century, it was also a common nickname for a tailor.
Definitions of snip
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sever or remove by pinching or snipping
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cultivate, tend, and cut back the growth of
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types:
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shear
cut with shears
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poll, pollard
convert into a pollard
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pinch, top
cut the top off
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disbud
thin out buds to improve the quality of the remaining flowers
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tail
remove the stalk of fruits or berries
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type of:
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thin out
make sparse
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the act of clipping or snipping
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a small piece of anything (especially a piece that has been snipped off)
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