Clipped

Clipped is the past participle of the verb clip and is used in several senses in language and culture. In everyday usage, something described as clipped has been cut short or trimmed, such as hair, clothing hems, lines of speech, or a trajectory that has been shortened. In linguistics, clipping is a word-formation process that produces shortened forms of longer words, and “clipped” describes forms created by this process, such as “fridge” from “refrigerator.”

In technical contexts, clipping denotes a specific kind of distortion or boundary enforcement. In audio and electronics, clipping occurs when a signal exceeds the maximum representable level, producing distortion with flat-topped peaks. It can be an intentional effect in music or measurement equipment, but it often indicates overload. In image and video processing, clipping refers to pixel values that lie outside a permissible range being trimmed to the nearest boundary, which can reduce detail in bright or dark regions. In computer graphics and mathematics, clipping confines objects or lines to a defined region by removing portions outside the boundary.

As a title or name, “Clipped” has been used for various media works, though the exact reference typically requires disambiguation to identify the intended film, show, song, or publication. The term also appears in contexts discussing abbreviated forms or typographic decisions, where clipped forms influence informal writing and transcription.