tip

UK/tɪp/US/tɪp/

nounA26 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,181 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: tips, tipped, tipping

A tip is the extra money you leave for someone who served you: coins on the saucer, ten per cent on the bill, a note pressed into a taxi driver's hand. It is also the thin end of a thing — the tip of your finger, the tip of a pencil, the tip of the iceberg.

The third common one is advice: a tip for keeping herbs alive, tips on passing the test, a tip-off to the police about where the van is parked. As a verb it means to tilt or to pour by tilting — tip the chair back, tip the crumbs into the bin, the boat tipped over. In Britain a tip is also the rubbish dump you drive an old sofa to, and by extension any room in a state: your bedroom is a tip. The phrases matter here: on the tip of my tongue is a name you nearly have, and the tip of the iceberg is the small showing part of a much bigger problem.

Definitions of tip

1nountipExtra money given to someone for serving you well.A2~2%
“We left a tip on the table and walked out into the rain.”
- Said"Leave a tip; she looked after us all evening."
- WrittenThe tips went into a jar by the till and were shared out at closing.
- UsedAdd a tip of ten percent unless service is already included.
- ContrastA tip, not the bill. The bill you owe; the tip you choose. bill →
- Not thisMoney you must pay is not a tip, whatever the receipt calls it. A tip can be nothing.
Patternleave / give a tip · a big / generous tip · a tip for + person · tip the waiter · tipping
2nounthinThe thin pointed end of something.A2~75%
“The tips of his fingers were black with ink.”
3nounshortA short piece of practical advice.A2~10%
“Here is a tip: freeze the bread on the day you buy it.”
4verbtiltTo tilt something, or to pour something out by tilting it.B1~2%
“She tipped the last of the coffee into the sink.”
5verbgiveTo give extra money to someone who has served you.A2~2%
“He tips the barber every time, whatever the haircut looks like.”
6nounplaceA place where rubbish is dumped; also, a very untidy room, in British English.B2~9%
“We took the broken chairs to the tip on Saturday.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 10 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

TIP → the coins you TIP out for the waiter

Tip a few coins out of your pocket and leave them under your cup: a small thank-you for the waiter.

Phrases it lives in

the tip of the iceberg — the small visible part of a much bigger problem
on the tip of my tongue — a word you almost remember but cannot quite say
tip someone off — to warn or inform someone secretly

Where it comes from

The tip you can point with is the old one: Middle English tip, of unknown origin, perhaps a distant relative of top, the word for the other end. Dutch tip and Low German Tip are the same short, sharp word.

Middle English
tip
English, today
tip

Built from

tippe · Middle English — tip

From Middle English tip. From Middle English tip, typ, tippe (“tip”), of unknown origin. Perhaps distantly related to top. Related to stq Tip (“tip”), West Frisian tippe, tip (“tip”), Dutch tip (“tip”), German Low German Tip, Tippel (“tip”), dialectal {{cog|de|

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen, Shopping & Money

Practise this word

tip in the wild

At the tip is the urinary meatus and the base forms the corona glandis.
Glans penis
The tip contact is indented with a groove.
Phone connector (audio)
Between the tip and sleeve are zero to three ring contacts.
Phone connector (audio)
The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring.
Aberfan disaster
The external opening of the urethra at the tip of the glans is the urinary meatus.
Human penis

1 / 2

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

Definitions of tip

1nountipExtra money given to someone for serving you well.A2~2%

“We left a tip on the table and walked out into the rain.”

Said"Leave a tip; she looked after us all evening."
WrittenThe tips went into a jar by the till and were shared out at closing.
UsedAdd a tip of ten percent unless service is already included.
ContrastA tip, not the bill. The bill you owe; the tip you choose. bill →
Not thisMoney you must pay is not a tip, whatever the receipt calls it. A tip can be nothing.

Patternleave / give a tip · a big / generous tip · a tip for + person · tip the waiter · tipping

2nounthinThe thin pointed end of something.A2~75%

“The tips of his fingers were black with ink.”

3nounshortA short piece of practical advice.A2~10%

“Here is a tip: freeze the bread on the day you buy it.”

4verbtiltTo tilt something, or to pour something out by tilting it.B1~2%

“She tipped the last of the coffee into the sink.”

5verbgiveTo give extra money to someone who has served you.A2~2%

“He tips the barber every time, whatever the haircut looks like.”

6nounplaceA place where rubbish is dumped; also, a very untidy room, in British English.B2~9%

“We took the broken chairs to the tip on Saturday.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 10 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.