clipper

Meanings

1. Anything or anyone that clips.
2. A tool used for clipping something, such as hair, coins, or fingernails.
3. Something that moves swiftly; especially:
4. Any of several forms of very fast sailing ships having a long, low hull and a sharply raked stem.
5. An Alberta clipper.
6. An Asian butterfly of species Parthenos sylvia, family Nymphalidae.
7. A circuit which prevents the amplitude of a wave from exceeding a set value.
8. A person who mutilates coins by fraudulently paring the edges.
9. A confidence trickster; a conman.
10. Anything showy or first-rate.

1. To cut or style (the hair) using clippers.

1. A surname from German.
2. An unincorporated community in Whatcom County, Washington, United States.

Etymology

From Middle English clipper, equivalent to clip (“cut, shorten”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns). The type of sailing ship is probably also from clip, in the sense of “move or run rapidly”. Perhaps influenced by Middle Dutch klepper (“swift horse”), from kleppen (“to clap”), which is onomatopoeic.