Hip

How to spell hip

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hip

What does hip mean?

1. nounThe projection of the pelvis and upper thigh on either side of the body.
2. adjectiveCurrently fashionable and aware of the latest trends.
3. nounThe red seed-bearing fruit of a rose, often used to make syrup or tea.

Hip in a sentence

• noun

  She rested one hand on her hip while she waited.

• adjective

  The cafe became a hip spot for young professionals.

• noun

  She gathered a basket of rose hip to make syrup.

• noun

  The dancer swung her hip in time with the music.

• adjective

  He liked to seem hip by quoting obscure bands.

• noun

  Each scarlet hip on the hedge held a cluster of seeds.

Where does hip come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from the Old English hype, the native Anglo-Saxon name for the joint where the thigh meets the pelvis. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic form, making it a close relative of the Dutch heup and the German Hufte, both of which still mean the same body part today. The spelling has stayed short and blunt for over a thousand years, shrinking from hype to the modern three-letter hip. A separate but identically spelled hip, the small red fruit of the wild rose, descends from the unrelated Old English heope. The slang sense meaning fashionable and up to date is an early twentieth-century American coinage of uncertain origin, possibly linked to hep, and it is this newer adjective rather than the ancient noun that gave us hipster.

How the word is built

• hip (single Old English root; no prefix or suffix)