sb. [The name of the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.] (With capital Z.) In full Zeppelin airship: a dirigible airship; properly, one of a type constructed by Count Zeppelin of Germany in 1900.
Sometimes colloquially abbreviated Zep(p.
1900. Whitaker’s Alm., 665/2. The Zeppelin Air-ship, now [1899] in construction on an island of the Boden See, is a cylindrical frame of aluminium in partitions, each holding a gas-bag.
1914. F. T. Jane, in Land & Water, 12 Sept., 15*/1. A Zeppelin has dropped bombs on Antwerp. Ibid., 19 Sept., 19*/1. Alarming rumours of a German Zeppelin invasion of England viá Calais. Ibid., 26 Sept., 16*/2. It takes something like a year to build a Zeppelin shed.
1915. Jessie Pope, Simple Rhymes, Mariana. The night those Zeps bombarded town.
1916. Times Lit. Suppl., 27 Jan., 40/3. A hostile raiding ‘Zepp.’
Hence Zeppelin (also abbrev. zep) v. trans., to drop bombs on from a Zeppelin; Zeppelinite, one who advocates the use of Zeppelins as an engine of war, esp. against non-combatants.
1916. Wells, Mr. Britling, I. v. § 12. They will Zeppelin the fleet and walk through our army.
1916. Daily Express, 29 March, 4/7. The battle royal between the Zeppelinites and the anti-Zeppelinites [in Germany] continues.
1920. W. J. Locke, House of Baltazar, vii. 83. ‘So you’ve been Zepped, I hear,’ she said.
