clipper

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that cuts, shears, or clips.
2. n. An instrument or tool for cutting, clipping, or shearing. Often used in the plural: nail clippers.
3. n. Nautical A sharp-bowed sailing vessel of the mid-19th century, having tall masts and sharp lines and built for great speed.
4. n. One that moves very fast.
5. n. Electronics See limiter.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who or that which clips; especially, one who reduces the size, value, or importance of anything by clipping it.
2. n. A cutting-tool of the nature of shears; specifically, a tool with rotating or reciprocating knives used for cutting hair, and especially for clipping horses. See clipping-shears.
3. n. A sailing vessel built with very sharp lines, more or less raking masts, and great spread of canvas, with a view to speed: a development of a model for the mercantile marine first built at Baltimore, U. S., and called the Baltimore clipper. The clippers, becoming famous for quick runs, and occasionally making better time than the steamers, were especially employed in the South American fruit-trade, in the China trade for cargoes of tea and opium, and in the early California traffic by the Cape Horn route (1849–50). Also called clipper-ship.
4. n. A person or an animal that runs swiftly, or looks as if capable of running swiftly; a very smart person; something first-rate.
5. n. An Australian bird of the genus Ephthianura: as, the wag-tail clipper, E. albïfrons.
6. n. The larva of species of Sialis, a genus of neuropterous insects, used for bait by anglers. Also called, in the United States, crawler, dobson, and hellgrammite.

Wiktionary

1. n. Anything that clips.
2. n. A tool used for clipping something, such as hair, coins, or fingernails.
3. n. Something that moves swiftly; especially.
4. n. electronics A circuit which prevents the amplitude of a wave from exceeding a set value.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who clips; specifically, one who clips off the edges of coins.
2. n. A machine for clipping hair, esp. the hair of horses.
3. n. (Naut.) A vessel with a sharp bow, built with a fast hull and tall sails, rigged for fast sailing, and used in trade where the cargo capacity was less important than the speed; -- called also clipper ship.
4. n. (Electronics) a circuit that limits the amplitude of a waveform.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (electronics) a nonlinear electronic circuit whose output is limited in amplitude; used to limit the instantaneous amplitude of a waveform (to clip off the peaks of a waveform)
2. n. scissors for cutting hair or finger nails (often used in the plural)
3. n. shears for cutting grass or shrubbery (often used in the plural)
4. n. a fast sailing ship used in former times