[f. CLIP v.2] That clips, or cuts with shears; that flies or moves fast.
1635. Quarles, Embl., IV. ii. (1718), 194. The pinions of a clipping dove.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., ix. I only wish I had the command of a clipping privateer.
1876. Blackie, Songs Relig. & Life, 151. With clipping tongue.
b. slang. Excellent, first-rate.
1861. Thackeray, Philip, iv. What clipping girls there were in that barouche.
1873. Slang Dict., Clipping, excellent, very good.
Hence Clippingly adv., in a clipping manner.
1849. Lytton, K. Arthur, VI. xxxiii. I. 260.
| When knots grew tough, it was sublime to see | |
| Such polished sheers go clippingly in nodo. |
1857. S. Osborn, Quedah, iii. 38. His cognomen … was Jack Ketch; a nickname he pronounced so clippingly that it sounded not unlike his real one.
