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The Collaborative International Dictionary
clipper ship

Clipper \Clip"per\ (kl[i^]p"p[~e]r), n.

  1. One who clips; specifically, one who clips off the edges of coins.

    The value is pared off from it into the clipper's pocket.
    --Locke.

  2. A machine for clipping hair, esp. the hair of horses.

  3. (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. -- Clip"per-built`, a.

    Note: The name was first borne by ``Baltimore clippers'' famous as privateers in the early wars of the United States.

  4. (Electronics) a circuit that limits the amplitude of a waveform. Syn: limiter. Yankee Clipper,

    1. a clipper ship built in the United States. See clipper[3].

    2. Joe DiMaggio; -- a nickname for the player who was a prominent member of the New York Yankees baseball team in the 1940's.

WordNet
clipper ship

n. a fast sailing ship used in former times [syn: clipper]

Usage examples of "clipper ship".

The tall clipper ship looked lazy now, indolent in her flounces and ruffles as a lady of high fashion, and Black Joke was snorting and snuffling busily down the short leg of the triangle.

Pitt did not need an old clipper ship captain to tell him that with their extremely limited sail power, there was little opportunity for maneuvering their way into the slot.

Anxiously his fingers reached up and touched the half-coin that was on the heavy thong around his neck under his shirt, a coin like that his illustrious ancestor, Wu Fang Choi, had called upon to claim a clipper ship to rival the finest in Dirk Struan's fleet.

One of the models was of the clipper ship Pacific Princess (Hezikiah Fleming, Master), which had held the San Francisco-Shanghai speed record in her day.

Someone leaked the story of the clipper ship to Dempster, doubling the cost of the party.

Now, with petroleum products useless, the clipper ship had been resurrected.

The old clipper ship had four or five sails unfurled on each of the three masts, and a few triangular ones between the masts as well, and extending forward to the bowsprit.

He has a tattoo of a clipper ship on one arm, an anchor on the other, and a scar on his hand where he once stitched himself up with a needle and thread.

In one was a six-foot-long, exquisitely detailed model of the clipper ship Pacific Princess (Richard Pickering, Master), which had setand still heldthe San Francisco-Shanghai speed record for sailing vessels.

You know, used to be you could go to sea on a big clipper ship or a fishing ship and be a big hero in a storm.