dipping

Etymology

verb

1. present participle and gerund of dip

noun

1. An act or process of immersing.
   […] it was ordeined, that children shuld be brought to the church, there to receiue baptisme in faire water, with thrée dippings into the same, in the name of the father, the sonne, and the Holie-ghost […] 1587, Raphael Holinshed et al., “Henrie the second”, in The first and second volumes of Chronicles, page 82
   By an infinite number of materials, I mean colours and shades of all kinds and degrees; some notion of which variety may be formed by supposing a piece of white silk by several dippings gradually dyed to a black; and carrying it in like manner through the prime tints of yellow, red, and blue; and then again, by making the like progress through all the mixtures that are to be made of these three original colours. 1753, William Hogarth, chapter 13, in The Analysis of Beauty, London: for the author, page 110
   Baby Adam cried a good deal at the beginning of the wake, for the mourners, not knowing about babies, had neglected to feed him. Cyrus soon solved the problem. He dipped a rag in whisky and gave it to the baby to suck, and after three or four dippings young Adam went to sleep. 1952, John Steinbeck, East of Eden, London: Heinemann, Part One, Chapter 3, I, p. 11
2. The act of inclining downward.
3. The act of lifting or moving a liquid with a dipper, ladle, or the like.
4. The process of cleaning or brightening sheet metal or metalware, especially brass, by dipping it in acids, etc.
5. (US) The use of dipping tobacco (moist snuff) in the mouth, usually between the lip and gum or cheek and gum in the lower or upper part of the mouth.
6. (birdwatching) The act or fact of missing out on seeing a bird.
   That same trip would have to go down as the greatest dipping fest in Australian birding history. I had five target species and never saw one, despite spending a week looking for them. 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 35