clipper

From Middle Dutch klepper and Middle English clippen, from Old English clyppan, from Proto-Germanic *klupjaną.[1] [2]

clipper (plural clippers)

1. Anything that clips.
2. (chiefly in the plural) A tool used for clipping something, such as hair, coins, or fingernails.
3. Something that moves swiftly; especially:
   1. (nautical) Any of several forms of very fast sailing ships having a long, low hull and a sharply raked stem.
   2. (informal) An Alberta clipper.
4. (electronics) A circuit which prevents the amplitude of a wave from exceeding a set value.
5. (historical) A person who mutilates coins by fraudulently paring the edges.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, Scene 1,

     Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their shoulders: but it is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the king himself will be a clipper.

   • 1781, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, London: J. Bew, Act II, p. 21,

     Many a wretch who has been drawn upon a hurdle, has done less mischief than those barterers of forged lies, coiners of scandal, and clippers of reputation.

   • 2010, James Morrow, The Last Witchfinder

     Surtouts billowing in an unseasonably fierce wind, the ursine Chelmsford magistrate and his equally bulky constable herded their bound prisoners – three murderers, three thieves, a coin clipper, two convicted witches – across the Common […]

6. (slang) Confidence trickster; conman
   • 1848', William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 16:

     "You have head enough for both of us, Beck," said he. "You're sure to get us out of the scrape. I never saw your equal, and I've met with some clippers in my time too."

• Alberta clipper

• Dutch: (nautical) klipper, klipperaak m or f

• Clipper chip

• cripple

From English clipper

• IPA^(key): /kli.pœʁ/

clipper m (plural clippers)

1. (nautical) heavy sailing ship
2. (aviation) transatlantic airplane

• Nouveau Petit Larousse illustré. Dictionnaire encyclopédique. Paris, Librairie Larousse, 1952, 146th edition

• “clipper” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).