kipper
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkɪpə(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ɪpə(ɹ)
Forms: form: kippers
Etymology: From Old English cypera (“male salmon”), perhaps related to Old English coper (“reddish-brown metal”) (see copper), on resemblance of color. Another theory connects it to kip (“sharp, hooked lower jaw of the male salmon in breeding season”), from Middle English kippen (“to seize, snatch”), but OED doubts this.
Senses: glosses: A split, salted and smoked herring or salmon.
glosses: A male salmon after spawning.
examples: text: Kipper, I discovered, was airman's slang for a fishing boat. The chief function of this particular station was the escorting of convoys and fishing fleets, and the section which had the latter duty to perform was known as the ‘Kipper Patrol’.
ref: 1941, L. Walmsley, Fishermen at War:
text: Kipper-kites, aircraft engaged on convoy escort duties over the North Sea and usually giving protection to the fishing-vessels.
ref: 1943, J. L. Hunt, A. G. Pringle, Service Slang, page 42:
topics: government
military
politics
war
qualifier: RAF World War II code name
glosses: A patrol to protect fishing boats in the Irish and North Seas against attack from the air.
examples: text: As she was only crawling along I aimed my first ‘kipper’ just a fraction ahead of her bows.
ref: 1953, Mars Unbroken:
text: I evaluate its firing power at eighteen torpedoes—I think kipper is a distressing piece of naval slang—in thirty minutes.
ref: 1959, G. Jenkins, Twist of Sand:
text: 'Fancy running the risk of getting a kipper [a torpedo] to go with his grub.'
ref: 2009, Jean Hood, Submarine, page 197:
topics: government
military
naval
navy
politics
war
glosses: A torpedo.
examples: text: 1 Kipper, Englishman
ref: 1946, R. Rivett, Behind Bamboo 397:
text: An able seaman on a kipper warship called the Eagle.
ref: 1946 August 8, Sunday Sun (Sydney):
text: Quite often they [sc. English immigrants in Australia] are referred to as Kippers.
ref: 1963 May 24, Times Literary Supplement:
text: You kippers—no guts and two faces—are only strong under the armpits... What about the east of Suez caper, eh?
ref: 1967, K. Giles, Death & Mr. Prettyman:
glosses: An Englishman who has moved to Australia.
examples: text: With these weapons the natives invest their young men at the age of from fourteen to sixteen years... These young men are then called kippers, and for the first time enjoy the privilege of taking an active part in the fight.
ref: 1841, C. Eipper, German Mission to Aborigines:
text: Around us sat ‘Kippers’, i.e. ‘hobbledehoy blacks’.
ref: 1853, H. B. Jones, Adventures Australian, page 126:
text: A ceremony at which the young men..receive the rank of warriors and are henceforth called Kippers.
ref: 1885, R. C. Praed, Australian Life:
glosses: A young Aboriginal man who has been initiated into to the rights of manhood.
examples: text: Don't push so, 'Liza; you're a-knockin' my 'at off, yer silly kipper!'
ref: 1899, Laura Ormiston Chant, Sellcuts' Manager, page 253:
text: 'Marriage during the Emergency isn't for me. I think of Alyson Carew. But carrying on with another officer's wife, well, separated wife; won't it affect my career?' 'Don't be a silly kipper.'
ref: 2010, Frederick Lees, The Malayan Life of Ferdach O'Haney:
text: Why didn't he go to the May Island, the silly kipper that he was, and bring us all back a nice wee lass instead of you, you nasty brat!'
ref: 2018, Rosemary Goring, Scotland: Her Story:
glosses: A fool.
examples: text: Half-a-dozen dreadfully common young bicyclists were commenting on her discomfiture with delighted exclamations of ‘Giddy old Kipper’, ‘Sweet Seventeen’, ‘Cheero, Maudie—you'll win!’
ref: 1907 April 10, Punch:
text: If you're enterprizing enough to climb one of the trees christened by usage ‘The Kipper's Tree’, which hardly needs to be translated into plainer terms.
ref: 1923, M. M. Gibb, Hetherington's Affinity:
text: A chap who has got duck's disease is most often labelled ‘Tich’... Alternatively: ankle biter,..kipper, microbe, midge, [etc.].
ref: 1959, I. Opie, P. Opie, Lore & Language:
glosses: A child or young person.
glosses: The vagina.
Derived terms: dead as a kipper
done up like a kipper
flip the kipper
kipperer
kipperish
kipperless
kipper tie
kipper time
stitched up like a kipper