# Aint it a Pip? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 10, 2025, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897 "2025-08-10T01:15:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/1 "2025-08-10T01:15:40Z")
I just used the word _epiphany,_ in a post. As: “Ain’t it just an epiphany?” Got me wondering. Is that where _pip_ comes from? I know it can mean a just hatched bird. Or a seed. But before that? @Johanna ? You around? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/2 "2025-08-10T04:25:16Z")
From Old French _pepin_ (a seed), probably from a root like Vulgar Latin \*_pép_, an expressive creation used to express smallness. [It has a bunch of other meanings too](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pip). Epiphany is from Greek _epi_- ‘on’ plus _phaneia_ ‘shine, appear’. _Epiphaines_ ‘in view’. _Epiphaino_ ‘come into view’. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/3 "2025-08-10T04:26:43Z")
I knew you would know. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/4 "2025-08-10T12:30:03Z")
I think a lot of modern-day people are familiar with the word from the Sherlock Holmes story, “ **The Five Orange Pips** ”. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/5 "2025-08-10T12:55:57Z")
How so? I think “pip” is a very common word. I expect it was in widespread use before the Sherlock Holmes story. Do you have a reason to think otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/6 "2025-08-10T12:58:20Z")
Also, a pip is a dot on a die. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/7 "2025-08-10T13:05:19Z")
Sorry. What I meant was that for some American English speakers, the Conan Doyle story is where they first encountered the word. At least it was for me. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/8 "2025-08-10T13:09:25Z")
The last word in the last episode of All in the Family is “pip”. You know somethin’, Archie? You’re a pip. A real pip. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/9 "2025-08-10T13:14:08Z")
[Lucky 10,000](https://xkcd.com/1053/) and all that, but is the word really uncommon in American English? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/10 "2025-08-10T14:34:21Z")
In one of the Our Gang shorts, Miss Crabtree was referred to as a ‘pip.’ ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/11 "2025-08-10T19:55:20Z")
Short for pippin, a sort of small apple. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/12 "2025-08-10T22:45:03Z")
Isn’t there some kind of mechanical problem/thing called a pip? Speaking of hearing it in a movie or TV show, Sean Connery called his pipe a ‘pip’ in that older version of Murder on the Orient Express. I always get a tickle when I hear that. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/13 "2025-08-11T13:03:53Z")
The most common use in English for “pip” is one of the spots on a die or domino. When I first read the Holmes story (and hence, forever more stuck in my imagination that way), I didn’t know what an “orange pip” was, and imagined it as being that little blossom bit on the end of the fruit that you pop off when you’re peeling it. Which, really, doesn’t change the story at all, since all that matters is that it’s a handful of small, mundane objects that have a coded significance. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/14 "2025-08-11T14:09:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The most common use in English for “pip” is one of the spots on a die or domino. This may be an AmE thing. In my HibE and, I’m pretty sure, in BrE the most common sense is the seed of a fruit — apple pips, orange pips, etc. The word could also mean the fruit itself, but it has largely died out in that sense. This sense comes from _pippin_ (which survives in the name of some apple varieties e.g. Cox’s orange pippin) which had the same sense and which came from Old French. There are related words in other Romance languages — _pepita_ in Spanish; _pippo_ in Tuscan. But if there was a common Latin root, it’s lost. There’s a separate sense of _pip_ — a respiratory disease of birds. This is older than the “seed” sense, but is not much used outside poultry and veterinary contexts. It has a different etymology — it comes from Dutch, and ultimately from post-classical Latin _pituita_, phlegm or mucus. There’s colloquial “annoying” sense of the word (“it gives me the pip”). It comes from _pip_, the respiratory disease, not _pip_, the seed. In BrE _pip_ is the annoyance, irritation or gloom caused by an annoying person, thing or event. But there’s an almost exactly opposite colloquial sense of _pip_ in AmE — something remarkable good (“He landed himself a pip of a job”) and this comes from the fruit, seed sense. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/15 "2025-08-11T15:43:21Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > But there’s an almost exactly opposite colloquial sense of _pip_ in AmE — something remarkable good Like Miss Crabtree! ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/16 "2025-08-11T15:55:55Z")
Or Top Cat. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/17 "2025-08-11T16:37:16Z")
Can mean a lot of things. Used to be on BBC radio when they were announcing the time. > **[Greenwich Time Signal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Time_Signal)** > > The Greenwich Time Signal (GTS), popularly known as the pips, is a series of six short tones (or "pips") broadcast at one-second intervals by many BBC Radio stations to mark the precise start of each hour. The pips were introduced in 1924, generated by the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and from 1990 were generated by the BBC in London. The broadcast pips replaced an electrical time coordination system based on the railway telegraph network, which itself was an extension of the mechanical time ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/18 "2025-08-11T16:51:40Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Also, a pip is a dot on a die. How many piece-moves you have in backgammon; you start the game needing to move all of your pieces a collective 167 pips. If you roll a 1 & a 2 on your two dice, you can move one piece one ‘space’/pip & (the same or) another piece two spaces/pips (subject to the rules of that space being available). Given they go hand-in-hand but are different, I wonder if there was a common root to both ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/19 "2025-08-11T17:49:16Z")
So, what kind of Pips were the guys singing behind Gladys Knight? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897/20 "2025-08-11T18:52:40Z")
I knew this word was interesting. _Thanks, beck for a pip of a thread!_ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aint-it-a-pip/1021897.md?page=2)