Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A thin piece of blubber cut in oblong shape, with slits in it, used to wipe up gurry or slumgullion from the deck of a whaler.
  • noun A large metal ladle used for scooping up the oil from the deck of a whaler.
  • To wipe with a lipper: followed by off: as, to lipper off the deck.
  • noun Same as leaper.
  • Wet; rainy.
  • noun The spray from small waves, in either fresh or salt water.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Brad Pitt packing a lipper is the kind of publicity tobacco companies can no longer buy, at least not legally.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • Tim, last night there was a quick close-up of a player in the dugout packing a lipper.

    Help me understand baseball uniforms. Ann Althouse 2008

  • That was blowin 'a fresh o' wind, an 'he jest lay down in the lee scuppers, and' I can't get no wetter, Posh, 'he say, and let the lipper slosh oover him.

    Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" "Herring Merchants" James Blyth

  • There was not a great deal of sea on; indeed, there was hardly more than what the fishermen call a "northerly lipper;" but the tide was running with extraordinary swiftness.

    The Romance of the Coast James Runciman 1871

  • Within half-an-hour the lipper has gathered size, and in a terribly short time there are ugly, medium-sized waves bowling fiercely and regularly westward.

    The Romance of the Coast James Runciman 1871

  • Sure, a lucky lipper of mint Skoal is no glass of orange juice, but it is certainly safer than chain-smoking a pack of unfiltered Newports.

    Yale Daily News - Latest Issue 2010

  • As the final got underway, Collins wasted no time, snagging a right and blasting the lip on the outside, zigzagging to the inside where he belted another lipper, clearing showing he was not intimidated.

    Transworld Surf» | Transworld Surf 2009

  • Using the magazine lipper, carefully bend the lips inward until the smaller bit just fits between the lips.

    Mr. Completely 2009

  • When not teasing her brother, she loves to say rhyming phrases: lipper zipper, yipes stripes and ooey-gooey are examples.

    BellaOnline - The Voice of Women 2009

  • The white clouded flcy and the chimney of an oppofite houfe were feen by refleftion in both glafles, and it was eafy to move the lipper glafs till both images of the chimhey coincided.

    A Journal of natural philosophy, chemistry, and the arts .. 1797

Comments

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  • A glassworker’s tool made of wood in the shape of a cone and with a handle. It is used, not surprisingly, to form the lip of a vessel.

    November 9, 2007

  • According to Clifford W. Ashley in "The Yankee Whaler" (1926) a "lipper" is "an oblong piece of blubber with a slotted finger grip, used to squeegee the decks after cutting-in". Melville refers to the same implement as a "nipper" in "Moby Dick" (1851)

    December 15, 2009