pipe

Etymology

An image of a man holding a pipe (noun sense 1.1) to his mouth with his left hand, and playing a tabor with his right, from a stained glass window in Staffordshire, England, UK

The pipes (sense 1.2) of the church organ of St. Mary’s Church, Stapleford Tawney, Essex, England, UK

A water pipe (sense 2.1.1) of the Castielfabib hydroelectric power plant in Valencia, Spain

An orange pipe (sense 4.1) or piping on the armrest of an upholstered seat

A tobacco pipe (sense 6.1) used for smoking

From Middle English pīpe, pype (“hollow cylinder or tube used as a conduit or container; duct or vessel of the body; musical instrument; financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, pipe roll”), from Old English pīpe (“pipe (musical instrument); the channel of a small stream”),^[1] from Proto-West Germanic *pīpā. Reinforced by Vulgar Latin *pīpa, from Latin pipire, pipiare, pipare, from pīpiō (“to chirp, peep”), of imitative origin. Doublet of fife.

The “storage container” and “liquid measure” senses are derived from Middle English pīpe (“large storage receptacle, particularly for wine; cask, vat; measure of volume”), from pīpe (above) and Old French pipe (“liquid measure”).^[2] In specific contexts, calques similar units of measure such as Portuguese pipa.

The verb is from Middle English pīpen, pypyn (“to play a pipe; to make a shrill sound; to speak with a high-pitched tone”), from Old English pīpian (“to pipe”).^[3]

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /paɪp/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪp

Noun

pipe (plural pipes)

1. Meanings relating to a wind instrument.
   2. (music) A wind instrument consisting of a tube, often lined with holes to allow for adjustment in pitch, sounded by blowing into the tube. [from 10th c.]
      • 1913, “Danny Boy: Song Adapted from an Old Irish Air”, Fred[eric] E[dward] Weatherly (lyrics), New York, N.Y., London: Boosey & Co […], →OCLC, page 1:

        Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
        From glen to glen, and down the mountain side,
        The summer's gone and all the roses falling,
        It's you, it's you must go and I must bide.

   3. (music) A tube used to produce sound in an organ; an organ pipe. [from 14th c.]
      • 1980, Harvey E[lliott] White, Donald H. White, “Wind Instruments”, in Physics and Music: The Science of Musical Sound, Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders College Pub./Holt, Rinehart and Winston, →ISBN, page 245; republished Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2014, →ISBN, part 3 (Musical Instruments), section 18.7 (The Theater Organ), page 245:

        Most theater organs use many sets (ranks) of reed and flue pipes of various shapes, pipe scales, and so forth to generate a variety of timbres.

   4. The key or sound of the voice. [from 16th c.]
      • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], page 257, column 2:

        For they ſhall yet belye thy happy yeeres,
        That ſay thou art a man: Dianas lip
        Is not more ſmooth, and rubious: thy ſmall pipe
        Is as the maidens organ, ſhrill, and ſound,
        And all is ſemblatiue a womans part.

   5. A high-pitched sound, especially of a bird. [from 18th c.]
      • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part IV”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, pages 66–67:

        Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
        The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
        To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
        The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
        So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

2. Meanings relating to a hollow conduit.
   1. A rigid tube that transports water, steam, or other fluid, as used in plumbing and numerous other applications. [from 10th c.]
      • 2006, Richard M. Tanner, “Lockheed Tristar: Single-point Tanker”, in History of Air-to-air Refuelling, Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Books, →ISBN, part 2 (Technology), page 286, column 1:

        A standard Flight Refuelling Ltd Mk 8 probe nozzle was attached to the probe structural tube and fuel pipe. The pipe was double-walled, and passed through into the fuselage aft of the flight deck; […] A non-return valve was fitted within the fuel pipe aft of the probe nozzle, thus preventing any leakage of fuel if the aircraft lost the probe nozzle inadvertently.

      1. (especially in informal contexts) A water pipe.

         A burst pipe flooded my bathroom.

         • 2000, Richard L. Valentine et al., “Chlorine and Monochloramine Decay in Batch and Loop Experiments”, in The Role of the Pipe–Water Interface in DBP Formation and Disinfectant Loss, Iowa City, Ia.: University of Iowa, →ISBN, page 115:

           Corrosion control can be accomplished in distribution systems by adding compounds that form a protective film on the pipe surface, thereby providing a barrier between the water and the pipe.

   2. A tubular passageway in the human body such as a blood vessel or the windpipe. [from 14th c.]
      • 1802, William Paley, “Of the Vessels of Animal Bodies”, in Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Philadelphia, Pa.: John Morgan, […], →OCLC, pages 125–126:

        Amongst the vessels of the human body, the pipe which conveys the saliva from the place where it is made, to the place where it is wanted, deserves to be reckoned amongst the most intelligible pieces of mechanism with which we are acquainted.

   3. (slang) A man's penis.
      • 2006, Monique A. Williams, Neurotica: An Honest Examination into Urban Sexual Relations, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu Enterprises, →ISBN, page 7:

        He grabs my legs and throws them over his shoulders, putting his big pipe inside me […]

      • 2010, Eric Summers, editor, Teammates, Sarasota, Fla.: StarBooks, →ISBN, page 90:

        He punctuated his demand with a deep thrust up CJ's hole. His giant pipe drove almost all the way in, pulsing against his fingers beside it.

      • 2011, Mickey Erlach, Gym Buddies & Buff Boys, Sarasota, Fla.: StarBooks, →ISBN, page 64:

        He laughed as he knelt down between Duncan's splayed thighs and tore open a packaged condom, then rolled it down over his big fuck-pipe.

3. Meanings relating to a container.
   2. A large container for storing liquids or foodstuffs; now especially a vat or cask of cider or wine. (See a diagram comparing cask sizes.) [from 14th c.]

      Meronym: pipestave

      • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 329:

        Mr Barretto informed us he had shipped two hundred and forty pipes of Madeira [which] not only impeded the ship's progress by making her too deep in the water, but greatly increased her motion.

      • 1846, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”, in The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, volume I, New York: W. J. Widdleton, published 1849, page 347, →OCLC:

        My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.

   4. The contents of such a vessel, as a liquid measure, sometimes set at 126 wine gallons; half a tun. [from 14th c.]

      Synonym: butt

      Coordinate terms: (in order of increasing volume) rundlet; barrel; tierce; hogshead; puncheon, tertian; tun

      • 1882, James E[dwin] Thorold Rogers, “Weights and Measures”, in A History of Agriculture and Prices in England from the Year after the Oxford Parliament (1259) to the Commencement of the Continental War (1793) […], volumes IV (1401–1582), Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 205:

        Again, by 28 Hen. VIII, cap. 14, it is re-enacted that the tun of wine should contain 252 gallons, a butt of Malmsey 126 gallons, a pipe 126 gallons, a tercian or puncheon 84 gallons, a hogshead 63 gallons, a tierce 41 gallons, a barrel 31½ gallons, a rundlet 18½ gallons.

4. Meanings relating to something resembling a tube.
   1. Decorative edging stitched to the hems or seams of an object made of fabric (clothing, hats, curtains, pillows, etc.), often in a contrasting color; piping. [from 15th c.]
   2. A type of pasta similar to macaroni.
   3. (geology) A vertical conduit through the Earth's crust below a volcano through which magma has passed, often filled with volcanic breccia. [from 19th c.]
      • 1995 March, Jon Bowermaster, “Diamond Rush in the Arctic”, in Fred Abatemarco, editor, Popular Science, volume 246, number 3, New York, N.Y.: Times Mirror Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 83, columns 2–3:

        While the pipe of a conventional volcano may extend down 50 miles or so, the volcanic pipes that pick up diamonds along the way had to go much deeper, perhaps as deep as 300 miles.

      • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 54:

        Some researchers think that the warming was caused as kimberlite pipes (volcanic vents originating deep in the Earth’s mantle) reached the surface near Lac de Gras in northern Canada and released huge amounts of carbon.

   4. (lacrosse) One of the goalposts of the goal.
   5. (mining) An elongated or irregular body or vein of ore. [from 17th c.]
   6. (Australia, colloquial, historical) An anonymous satire or essay, insulting and frequently libellous, written on a piece of paper which was rolled up and left somewhere public where it could be found and thus spread, to embarrass the author's enemies. [from 19th c.]
      • 1818 September 26, “Sydney. [Criminal Court.]”, in Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, volume XVI, number 775, Sydney, N.S.W.: By authority [government printer], →OCLC, page 3, columns 2–3:

        On Thursday Mr. William Bland, formerly a Surgeon in the Royal Navy, […] was brought to trial on a charge of libelling the Governor [Lachlan Macquarie], by the composition and publishing of various letters and verses contained in a manuscript book dropped on the Parramatta Road—and thence brought to light. […] [H]owever lenient the sentence passed upon this young man, yet, it is much to be hoped, that from his example pipe-making will in future be reposed solely in the hands of Mr. Wm. Cluer [an earthenware pipe maker] of the Brickfield Hill.

5. Meanings relating to computing.
   1. (computing) A mechanism that enables one program to communicate with another by sending its output to the other as input. [from 20th c.]
   2. (computing, slang) A data backbone, or broadband Internet access. [from 20th c.]

      A fat pipe is a high-bandwidth connection.

   3. (computing, typography) The character |. [from 20th c.]
      • 2001 July 13, JimmyMac, “java and xml”, in comp.lang.java.help‎ (Usenet):

        While parseing an xml document( sax parser ), trying to replace ' | ' with ' & ' , it finds the pipe, but won't replace with amper.

7. Meanings relating to a smoking implement.
   1. (smoking) A hollow stem with a bowl at one end used for smoking, especially a tobacco pipe but also including various other forms such as a water pipe. [from 16th c.]
      • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Four. The Last of the Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 129:

        Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal-stove, made of old bricks, was a gray-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

      • 1892, Walter Besant, “The Select Circle”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 46:

        In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle—a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

   2. (Canada, US, colloquial, historical) The distance travelled between two rest periods during which one could smoke a pipe. [from 18th c.]
8. (slang) A telephone.

   Synonym: blower

   • 1980, Charles D. Taylor, Show of Force:

     “Let's try to get on the pipe to Admiral Collier again.”

Verb

pipe (third-person singular simple present pipes, present participle piping, simple past and past participle piped)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To play (music) on a pipe instrument, such as a bagpipe or a flute.
   • 1605, R[ichard] V[erstegan], “Of the Antient Manner of Living of Ovr Saxon Ancestors. […]”, in A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: In Antiquities. Concerning the Most Noble and Renovvmed^{[sic – meaning Renovvned]} English Nation. […], printed at Antwerp: By Robert Bruney; […] [a]nd to be sold […], by Iohn Norton and Iohn Bill, →OCLC; republished London: Printed by Iohn Bill, […], 1628, →OCLC, page 85:

     [T]he pide Piper with a ſhrill pipe went piping through the ſtreets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houſes in great numbers after him; all which hee led into the riuer of Weaſer and therein drowned them.

   • 1789, William Blake, “Introduction”, in Songs of Innocence:

     Piping down the valleys wild / Piping songs of pleasant glee / On a cloud I saw a child. / And he laughing said to me / Pipe a song about a Lamb: / So I piped with merry chear. / Piper pipe that song again – / So I piped, he wept to hear.

2. (intransitive) To shout loudly and at high pitch.
   • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter II, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC, page 17:

     "Ar—cher—Ja—cob!" Johnny piped after her, pivoting round on his heel, and strewing the grass and leaves in his hands as if he were sowing seed.

3. (intransitive) To emit or have a shrill sound like that of a pipe; to whistle.
   • 1827, William Wordsworth, “The Brothers”, in The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. In Five Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, […], →OCLC, page 125:

     [W]ith the mariners
     A fellow-mariner,—and so had fared
     Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd
     Among the mountains, and he in his heart
     Was half a Shepherd on the stormy seas.
     Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
     The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
     Of caves and trees: […]

4. (intransitive) Of a queen bee: to make a high-pitched sound during certain stages of development.

   Coordinate terms: quack, toot

5. (intransitive, metallurgy) Of a metal ingot: to become hollow in the process of solidifying.
6. (transitive) To convey or transport (something) by means of pipes.
7. (transitive) To install or configure with pipes.
8. (transitive) To dab moisture away from.
   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins: The Garrison in the Stockade”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part IV (The Stockade), pages 153–154:

     Our chimney was a square hole in the roof; it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and the rest eddied about the house, and kept us coughing and piping the eye.

9. (transitive, figuratively) To lead or conduct as if by pipes, especially by wired transmission.
   • 2009, Susan Van Allen, “Churches Dedicated to Female Saints—Rome”, in 100 Places in Italy Every Woman should Go, Palo Alto, Calif.: Travelers’ Tales, Solas House, →ISBN, section I (The Divine: Goddesses, Saints, and the Blessed Virgin Mary), page 20:

     Soft baroque music pipes through the ornate, dripping-with-gold church sanctuary.

10. (transitive, computing, chiefly Unix) To directly feed (the output of one program) as input to another program, indicated by the pipe character (|) at the command line.
11. (transitive, cooking) To create or decorate with piping (icing).

    to pipe flowers on to a cupcake

    • 1998, Nicholas Lodge, Janice Murfitt, The International School of Sugarcraft: Book One: Beginners, London: Merehurst Press, →ISBN, page 108:

      This means a quantity of runouts can be made in advance, allowing more time to flat ice and pipe the cake.

12. (transitive, nautical) To order or signal by a note pattern on a boatswain's pipe.
    • 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter XXIII.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC, page 298:

      Pipe down the starboard watch, boatswain, and see that they go.

13. (transitive, slang, of a man) To have sex with a woman.
    • 2017 September 7, “Heatin Up”, in Lil Baby (lyrics), My Turn‎, 1:57:

      How you got everybody lit, pipin' up?
      Oh, she bad with no swag, I can pipe her up
      Made my last one my last one, I'm wifin' her

    • 2022 October 20, “Bitch”, Sliknik (lyrics), 2:21:

      Now this bitch calling me Pacino, she thinks she fifer
      The only thing on my mind is tryna pipe her

14. (transitive, slang, dated) To see.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:see

    • 1879 October, J[ohn] W[illiam] Horsley, “Autobiography of a Thief in Thieves’ Language”, in Macmillan’s Magazine, volume XL, number 240, London: Macmillan and Co. […], →OCLC, page 505, column 1:

      So I went and laid down on the grass. While laying there I piped a reeler whom I knew. He had a nark (a policeman's spy) with him. So I went and looked about for my two pals, and told them to look out for F. and his nark.

    • 1914, Jackson Gregory, Under Handicap:

      "Hey, Greek," Roger was saying, his droning voice coming unpleasantly into the other's musings, "did you pipe that? Did you ever see anything like her?"

15. (US, journalism, slang) To invent or embellish (a story).
    • 1981, Elie Abel, What's News: The Media in American Society, page 259:

      […] who ostensibly was handed an all-day sucker by a warm-hearted bandit in the act of robbing a candy store of $40, there was no moral outcry. "Find the girl," was the immediate response of competing editors to their reporters at police headquarters. The men of the press, who knew a piped story when they saw one, quickly found another little girl, presented her with a lollipop, and photographed her skipping rope in front of the candy store.

    • 2004, Arthur Gelb, City Room, page 154:

      If there was a lull in criminal activity, reporters were not above "piping" a story.

    • 2008, Homer L. Hall, Logan H. Aimone, High School Journalism, page 91:

      Reporters today supposedly do not use "piped" stories because they are unethical.

16. (transitive) To hit with a pipe.
    • 1986 February 1, anonymous author, “"Fuck Dolls" Fight Back”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 28, page 4:

      It goes without saying at every turn the cops and I were at it. It was said he may not be a great fighter but he'll stab or pipe anyone, cop or con.

References

Further reading

• pipe on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology

From English paper.

Noun

pipe

1. paper

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pip/

• Audio:

  (file)

Etymology 1

From the Old French verb piper (“to squeak, chirp”), from Latin pipare (“to squeak”).

Etymology 2

From English pipe.

Further reading

• “pipe”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Noun

pipe f

1. plural of pipa

Anagrams

• pepi

Etymology 1

Inherited from Old English pīpe, from Proto-West Germanic *pīpā; reinforced by Vulgar Latin *pīpa; some senses are from Old French pipe.

Etymology 2

From Old English pīpian.

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

pipe f (plural pipes)

1. (Jersey) 120 gallons

Etymology 1

From Old Norse pípa, from Old Saxon *pīpa, from Proto-West Germanic *pīpǭ.

Etymology 2

Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *pīpaną.

References

• “pipe” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Etymology 1

From Old Norse pípa, from Old Saxon *pīpa, from Proto-West Germanic *pīpǭ.

Etymology 2

Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *pīpaną.

References

• “pipe” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *pīpǭ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpiː.pe/

Noun

pīpe f

1. a pipe (musical instrument)
2. pipe (for channeling liquid)

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English pipe.

Pronunciation

Noun

pipe m (uncountable)

1. (computing) pipe (the redirection of the output of a process directly into the input of another)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpipe/ [ˈpi.pe]
• Rhymes: -ipe
• Syllabification: pi‧pe

Etymology 1

Etymology 2

Further reading

• “pipe”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10