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Origin and history of sip

sip(v.)

late 14c., sippen, "drink little by little, drink in small mouthfuls" (sometimes glossing Latin potisso, subbibo), a word of uncertain origin, perhaps from a Continental Germanic word such as Low German sippen "to sip," or from Old English sypian "absorb, drink in," which is related to supan "to take into the mouth a little at a time" (see sup (v.2)). OED writes that it is, "possibly a modification of sup intended to express a slighter action."

Compare Middle English soupen "drink in small mouthfuls, from Old English supan. Also compare Dutch sipperlippen "taste with the tip of the tongue." The transitive sense of "drink (a liquid) in very small mouthfuls" is from c. 1600. Related: Sipped; sipper; sipping.

sip(n.)

"a small drink; act of drinking by small quantities," by 1630s, perhaps c. 1500, from sip (v.). The figurative sense of "a mere taste" is by 1728.

also from 1630s

Entries linking to sip

sup(v.2)

"to sip, to take into the mouth with the lips, drink or swallow with small mouthfuls," Middle English soupen, from Old English supan (West Saxon), suppan, supian (Northumbrian) "sip, taste, drink, swallow" (strong verb, past tense seap, past participle sopen).

This is from Proto-Germanic *supanan (source also of Old Norse supa "to sip, drink," Middle Low German supen, Dutch zuipen "to drink, tipple," Old High German sufan, German saufen "to drink, booze"). The Germanic word is from PIE *sub-, possibly [Watkins] an extended form of the root *seue- (2) "to take liquid" (source also of Sanskrit sunoti "presses out juice," soma; Avestan haoma, Persian hom "juice;" Greek huetos "rain," huein "to rain;" Latin sugere "to suck," succus "juice, sap;" Lithuanian sula "flowing sap;" Old Church Slavonic soku "sap," susati "suck;" Middle Irish suth "sap;" Old English seaw "sap").

If this is correct, the two verbs sup are cognates out of Germanic, the other one via French. The noun meaning "a small quantity of liquid" is by 1560s.

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    Trends of sip

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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