kipper
1- a fish, especially a herring, that has been cured by splitting, salting, drying, and smoking.
- this method of curing fish.
- a male salmon during or after the spawning season.
- to cure (herring, salmon, etc.) by splitting, salting, drying and smoking.
Origin of kipper
1kipper
2- a young male Aborigine, usually 14 to 16 years old, who has recently undergone his tribal initiation rite.
Origin of kipper
2Related Words for kipper
preserve, dry, smoke, steel, fire, salt, keep, harden, pickle, temper, kipperExamples from the Web for kipper
Contemporary Examples of kipper
This can easily be mistaken for a kipper, the smoked herring that is on the breakfast menus of many British hotels.
Historical Examples of kipper
Kipper is also applied to salmon which has undergone the process of kippering (which see).
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
A northern term for a female fish, as kipper is for the male.
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
"Kipper's" rig-out must have totted up to a tidy little sum.
The Observations of HenryJerome K. Jerome
Then he had a kipper—not out of a tin, either—and bacon and eggs and toast and marmalade.
Air Men o' WarBoyd Cable
Be that as it may, Kipper was no favourite in the country of his exile.
kipper
1- a fish, esp a herring, that has been cleaned, salted, and smoked
- a male salmon during the spawning season
- Australian archaic, derogatory, slang an Englishman
- (tr) to cure (a fish, esp a herring) by salting and smoking
Word Origin for kipper
kipper
2- a native Australian youth who has completed an initiation rite
Word Origin for kipper
kipper
3- informal an adult who cannot afford to move away from his or her parents' home
Word Origin for kipper
Word Origin and History for kipper
Old English cypera "male salmon," perhaps related to coper "reddish-brown metal" (see copper), on resemblance of color. Another theory connects it to kip, name for the sharp, hooked lower jaw of the male salmon in breeding season, from Middle English kippen "to snatch, tug, pull." The modern word usually refers to kippered herring, from a verb meaning "to cure a fish by cleaning, salting, and spicing it" (early 14c.). The theory is that this originally was done to salmon, hence the name.