hip

UK/hɪp/US/hɪp/

nounB13 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,825 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: hips

Your hip is the wide bone below the waist that your leg hangs from. The part you rest a hand on, or a child.

It gives English a set of phrases about carrying and standing — hands on hips, a baby on the hip, shooting from the hip. Medicine uses it constantly, since a broken hip and a hip replacement are among the commonest events of later life. There are two other senses entirely: hip means fashionable and in the know, and a rose hip is the red fruit a rose leaves behind in autumn.

Definitions of hip

1nounhipThe joint and bone at each side of the body below the waist.B1~82%
“She stood with her hands on her hips.”
2adjectivefashionableFashionable and aware of what is current.B2~16%
“The area has become very hip.”
3nounredThe red fruit of a rose.C1~2%
“The hedge was full of hips and haws.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense (11 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Where it comes from

The hip is named for bending. Old English hype goes back to a root meaning to bend, which also lies behind Latin cubāre, to lie down.

Proto-Indo-European
*ḱewb-
Proto-Germanic
*hupiz
Old English
hype
Middle English
hipe
English, today
hip

Built from

*ḱew- · Proto-Indo-European — to bend

From Middle English hipe, hupe, from Old English hype, from Proto-Germanic hupiz (compare Dutch heup, Low German Huop, German Hüfte), from Proto-Indo-European ḱewb- (compare Welsh cysgu (“to sleep”), Latin cubāre (“to lie”), Ancient Greek κύβος (“hollow in the hips”), Albanian sup (“shoulder”), Sanskrit शुप्ति (“shoulder”)), from ḱew- (“to bend”). More at high. The sense "drug addict" derives from addicts lying on their hips while using certain drugs such as opium.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Body & Health, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

hip in the wild

Rooted in East Coast hip-hop, he is regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time.
Nas
An inductee of the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, it has been regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time.
Nas
As hip-hop spread beyond its origins in New York City, several Southern cities began developing their own hip-hop scenes in the 1980s.
Southern hip-hop
The most prominent cities in Southern hip-hop include Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, Miami, and Memphis.
Southern hip-hop
Hardcore hip-hop (also known as hardcore rap) is a subgenre of hip-hop that developed through the East Coast hip-hop scene in the 1980s.
Hardcore hip-hop

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the hype family

hip

hip — used about once every 215 pages · #1,825 · point at the bar for the others

Definitions of hip

1nounhipThe joint and bone at each side of the body below the waist.B1~82%

“She stood with her hands on her hips.”

2adjectivefashionableFashionable and aware of what is current.B2~16%

“The area has become very hip.”

3nounredThe red fruit of a rose.C1~2%

“The hedge was full of hips and haws.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense (11 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.