kipper1
[kip-er]
- 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.
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- to cure (herring, salmon, etc.) by splitting, salting, drying and smoking.
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Origin of kipper1
before 1000; Middle English kypre, Old English cypera spawning salmon, apparently derivative of cyperen of copper, i.e., copper-colored
kipper2
[kip-er]
- a young male Aborigine, usually 14 to 16 years old, who has recently undergone his tribal initiation rite.
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Origin of kipper2
First recorded in 1835–45, kipper is from the Wiradjuri word gibirr man
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for kipper
Contemporary Examples
This can easily be mistaken for a kipper, the smoked herring that is on the breakfast menus of many British hotels.
Historical Examples
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.
kipper1
- 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
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- (tr) to cure (a fish, esp a herring) by salting and smoking
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Word Origin
Old English cypera, perhaps from coper copper 1; referring to its colour
kipper2
- a native Australian youth who has completed an initiation rite
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Word Origin
from a native Australian language
kipper3
- informal an adult who cannot afford to move away from his or her parents' home
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Word Origin
C21: from k (ids) i (n) p (arents') p (ockets) e (roding) r (etirement) (savings)
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for kipper
n.
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.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper