nipple

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the small projecting part of a breast or mammary gland through which milk can pass

   The nurse checked that the infant had latched onto the nipple correctly.

2. 2
   noun

   the flexible teat on a baby's feeding bottle; chiefly North American

   She replaced the cracked nipple on the bottle.

3. 3
   noun

   a short piece of pipe, usually threaded at both ends, used to connect fittings; technical

   The plumber joined the valves with a steel nipple.

Common collocations

• nipple shield Noun + noun

From sixteenth-century nypell, an alteration of earlier neble, probably a diminutive of neb 'beak, nose, projecting tip.' The underlying image is therefore a small projection; later technical senses were named by resemblance.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images