Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A system of pipes, such as those used in plumbing.
  • noun The act of playing on a pipe.
  • noun The music produced by a pipe when played.
  • noun A shrill, high-pitched sound.
  • noun A narrow tube of fabric, sometimes enclosing a cord, used for trimming seams and edges, as of slipcovers.
  • noun A tubular ribbon of icing on a pastry.
  • adjective Music Playing on a pipe.
  • adjective Having a high-pitched sound.
  • adjective Tranquil; peaceful.
  • idiom (piping hot) Very hot.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Playing on a pipe.
  • Having a shrill, whistling sound.
  • In zoology, having or habitually uttering a shrill, whistling cry: said especially of birds.
  • Accompanied by the music of the peaceful pipe, rather than that of the martial trump or fife.
  • Simmering; boiling.
  • The noise made by bees preparatory to swarming.
  • noun The act of one who pipes.
  • noun The sound of playing on a pipe or as on a pipe; the music of pipes.
  • noun Weeping; crying.
  • noun A system of pipes; pipes, as for gas, water, oil, etc., collectively.
  • noun Fluting.
  • noun A kind of covered cord used for trimming dresses, especially along seams.
  • noun In harness, leather guards or shields encompassing a trace-chain.
  • noun A cord-like ornament of icing or frosting on the top of a cake.
  • noun In jewelry, a support, usually of a baser metal, attached behind a surface of precious metal which is too thin to preserve its shape unsupported.
  • noun In horticulture, a mode of propagating herbaceous plants having jointed stems, such as pinks, by taking slips or cuttings consisting of two joints, and planting them in moist sand under glass; also, one of these cuttings.
  • noun A way of dressing the hair by curling it around little pins of wood or baked clay called bilboquets.
  • noun In metallurgy See pipe, 20.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small cord covered with cloth, -- used as trimming for women's dresses.
  • noun Pipes, collectively.
  • noun The act of playing on a pipe; the shrill noted of birds, etc.
  • noun A piece cut off to be set or planted; a cutting; also, propagation by cuttings.
  • adjective Playing on a musical pipe.
  • adjective Peaceful; favorable to, or characterized by, the music of the pipe rather than of the drum and fife.
  • adjective Emitting a high, shrill sound.
  • adjective Simmering; boiling; sizzling; hissing; -- from the sound of boiling fluids.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) any Australian bird of the genus Gymnorhina, esp. Gymnorhina tibicen, which is black and white, and the size of a small crow. Called also caruck.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) a small American tree frog (Hyla Pickeringii) which utters a high, shrill note in early spring.
  • adjective [Colloq.] boiling hot; hissing hot; very hot.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of pipe.
  • noun The process of an animal just beginning to break out of its egg; precedes hatching.
  • noun The sound of musical pipes.
  • noun An act of making music or noise with pipes.
  • noun A system of pipes that compose a structure; pipework.
  • noun An ornamentation on pastry edges and seams.
  • noun An ornamentation on the edges of a garment; a small cord covered with cloth.
  • noun Piped icing on a cake.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • This piping is easily heard by _any_ one not actually deaf, and not the least danger of its being taken for any humming; in fact, it is not to be mistaken for anything else _but piping_, even when you hear it for the first time.

    Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained 1842

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • Venting a fixture when the drain piping is all under the floor, such as a toilet, sometimes requires that the vent be connected to the horizontal drainpipe, when there is not enough room to stack a tee in the vertical riser pipe to the fixture.

    Toilet Paper 2007

  • But sometimes multiple words move left, a phenomenon the linguist John Roberts Ross PhD ’67 identified and called “pied piping” in his MIT dissertation.

    Have you heard about the “whom of which” trend? Peter Dizikes | MIT News 2023

Comments

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  • Extruding dough or frosting through a conical piping bag to which a variety of specialized tips designed to produce specific shapes and patterns may be affixed.

    June 18, 2010