[Note: Parts of this entry were previously at nipsy.]
cat-nipper n [Cf cat n 3a, nipsy n]
1 also nipper:= tipcat n. ePA
1884 Evening Gaz. (Pittston PA) 27 Feb [4]/5, As soon as the mud dries up the ring games with marbles come in, and will dominate until the ball season arrives. Pittston boys haven’t “caught on” to “cat nipper” and button pitching yet, and their school yard fun is therefore somewhat limited. 1890 Duncannon Record (PA) 15 Aug 1/5, A couple of boys were playing cat-nipper at Harrisburg last Monday, when catty struck one of them in the eye knocking it out. 1904 Scranton Republican (PA) 15 Nov 7/4, David Jenkins . . nearly severed his thumb with a sharp pen knife. . . With James Barrett he was making a “peggy” to play “cat nipper.” 1928 Lebanon Daily News & Daily Times (PA) 9 Oct 18/2, We watched a bunch of kids playing that age old game of “nipper” today. . . [W]e’ll wager that there are 98 men out of every 100 who’d give their suspenders to take a cut broom handle, chip the ends to points with a dull hatchet, hunt out some old piece of packing wood, cut a handle on it and play the game. 1949 PA Dutchman 1.3.2, Henry K. Deisher, of Kutztown, says this game [= “nipsi”] used to be called “nipper” in his section, when he played it as a boy. 1970 DARE(Qu. EE10, A game in which a short stick lying on the ground is flipped into the air and then hit with a longer stick) Inf PA242, Nipper. 1995 in 1999 Millersville Univ. Center for PA Ger. Studies Jrl. Fall 5 (as of 1930s), I do remember as a youth playing nipper, the parts made from an old broom stick. 2008 News Jrl. (Wilmington DE) 22 Mar sec K 12/1 sePA (as of 1950s), We played Nipper, a modified broomstick-tossing game my dad learned as a kid. [DARE Ed: Writer grew up in Lebanon PA]
2 = catstick n 1.
1903 DN 2.350 NY, Cat-nipper. . . The stick in playing the game of cat.