clipper

[klip-er]

noun

1. a person or thing that clips clip or cuts.

2. (often used with a plural verb),  Often clippers. a cutting tool, especially shears.

   hedge clippers.

3. (usually used with a plural verb),  Usually clippers. a mechanical or electric tool for cutting hair, fingernails, or the like.

   He told the barber, “No clippers on the sides, please.”

4. Also called clipper ship. Nautical.,  a sailing ship built and rigged for speed, especially a type of three-masted ship with a fast hull form and a lofty rig, built in the U.S. from c1845, and in Great Britain from a later date, until c1870, and used in trades in which speed was more important than cargo capacity.

5. Electronics.,  a device that gives output only for an input above or below a certain critical value.

6. a person or thing that moves along swiftly.

clipper

/ ˈklɪpə /

noun

1. any fast sailing ship

2. a person or thing that cuts or clips

3. something, such as a horse or sled, that moves quickly

4. electronics another word for limiter

Other Word Forms

• unclipper noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of clipper¹

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; clip ¹, -er ¹

Example Sentences

She examined the ticket: first-class passage on the Royal Amsterdam, the finest Dutch clipper ship to sail the northern waters, leaving promptly at ten o’clock!

Read more on Literature

Britney Spears stared at herself in a mirror, grinning as she grabbed an electric clipper.

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As Carlos told it, his brother took the clippers, began to buzz, and in the harrowing tradition of at-home haircuts gone amok, somewhere along the way…

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The virus is spread through blood or other body fluids and can be contracted through something as innocuous as sharing a nail clipper or toothbrush, doctors say.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

It took weeks to get a nail clipper, said one man, for their unit of dozens of men.

Read more on Los Angeles Times