clipper

CEFRB2

/ˈklɪp.ə/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A tool used for cutting hair or nails.

  2. 02

    noun

    A fast sailing ship.

Examples

  • Do you have a nail clipper I could use?

  • The hair clipper was plugged in.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • [ˈkʰl̥ɪp.ə]
  • [ˈkʰl̥ɪp.ɚ] ~ [ˈkʰl̥ɪp.ɹ̩]

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A tool used for clipping something, such as hair, coins, or fingernails.

  2. Something that moves swiftly; especially:, Any of several forms of very fast sailing ships having a long, low hull and a sharply raked stem.

  3. Anything or anyone that clips.

More examples

In context

  • And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were clipper-freights,

  • Yes, perhaps I’d better begin there, at the moment when I […] asked a question carelessly enough of one of the locals, who was clipping a hedge in a desultory fashion nearby. […] When I passed my hedge clipper again, he said, […]

  • Rocks was having his hair clippered by another prisoner when Collins calmly walked past and sliced open the side of his face without breaking his stride.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

He used a nail blank to trim his overgrown toenails carefully.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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.