What's a "chippie"?

Wayne Johnston

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Dec 14, 2000, 10:54:55 PM12/14/00

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I have some divorce papers from 1901, where the wife complains that the
husband called her an "old chippie". What's that? It has to be something
bad. This is in southwestern Wisconsin.

Thanks.
--
Wayne Johnston

Brian Wickham

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Dec 14, 2000, 11:20:36 PM12/14/00

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A chippy is a promiscuous woman. It's American slang from the 1850s
to the 1890s, although I heard it used in the 1960s to mean exactly
the same thing. The allusion is to chirping birds so I wonder if
there is a connection to the much milder 60s British term "birds" for
young women.

Brian Wickham

Jan Bousse

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Dec 15, 2000, 2:49:38 AM12/15/00

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Wayne,

There is a French word, spelled "chipie", pronounced just as the word
you quote, which is translated in my dictionary as : ill-natured woman;
prude; sour face. I believe this matches the case much better. "Vieille
chipie", equivalent to your "old chippie" is still a very much alive
expression in French, and of course not very complimentary. The question
is, did these people know French or have a French background? Maybe
heard the term used by friends or neighbours?

Jan Bousse

JimHS

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Dec 15, 2000, 10:11:47 AM12/15/00

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"Brian Wickham" <bwic...@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3a399a2e...@news-server.nyc.rr.com...

Yes, it means 'a promiscuous woman', though it doesn't mean she was actually
one, of course.
I read in my dictionary that it probably derives from the 'Chipping
Sparrow', which is a 'small, clear-breasted North American sparrow', though
whether it's an allusion to the clear breast (whatever that might be), I
can't say.
I'd put 'old chippie' on a parallel with the British 'old slag' so it's not
something that should be thrown at any woman, whatever her nature.
Yes, UK 'bird' is much milder. Probably this comes from the Old English
Bridd (bird) connection with bride.

It's unlikely to be connected with the British fish and chip shop,
chippy(ie), since chips are crisps and fries are chips. Not the naval slang
for shipwright (chippy/shippy); if she was a skilled carpenter I'd have
thought it a (kind of) envious compliment coming from a man.

--
JimHS
-----
My email account is at rfci dot net, addressed to jims

Brian Wickham

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Dec 15, 2000, 11:48:51 AM12/15/00

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On Fri, 15 Dec 2000 04:20:36 GMT, bwic...@nyc.rr.com (Brian Wickham)
wrote:

>On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 21:54:55 -0600, Wayne Johnston
><way...@unforgettable.com> wrote:
>
>>I have some divorce papers from 1901, where the wife complains that the
>>husband called her an "old chippie". What's that? It has to be something
>>bad. This is in southwestern Wisconsin.
>>

The Random House Dictionary:
chip-py or <chip-pie>(chip'ee) n. pl. <-pies>
1. Slang.
a. a promiscuous woman.
[1885-90, Amer.; perh. after chippy, chippy bird a chipping sparrow]
_______________________________________________________
Roget's Thesaurus:
665.14 strumpet, harlot, wench, hussy, slut, jade, baggage, tart,
chippy, floozy, etc.
________________________________________________________
www.Dictionary.com
chip·py (chp) n., pl. chip·pies.
1. A chipping sparrow.
2. Slang. A woman prostitute.
________________________________________________________
www.Thesaurus.com
...wanton, fornicatress; Jezebel, Messalina, Delilah, Thais, Phryne,
Aspasia, Lais, lorette, cocotte, petite dame, grisette; demimonde;
chippy [U.S.]; sapphist;...
_______________________________________________________
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Thesaurus
chippy: noun
Synonyms: DOXY 1, floozy, grisette, light-o'-love, nymph, nymphet,
party girl, roundheel, tart, tootsie
________________________________________________________
H.L. Mencken "The American Language" 1936
Lists "chippy" with cocotte, courtesan, floozy, etc. as a word not
used in Hollywood films in the 1930s to please the Hayes Office.
_________________________________________________________________________

It is interesting that there is a similar French slang word. As the
citation is from the 1920s I would guess that it was heard by American
doughboys in 1918. Since they already had the word, the French
version could have reinforced it, keeping it current through the 1930s
up to the 1960s when I heard it, meaning loose women.

Regards,
Brian Wickham

p.s. The word does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary which
leads me to believe that the American word probably did not originate
in the French one. If it had then it most likely would have traveled
through Britain first.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the word made a sudden
jump from Paris to the U.S. around 1885.

Mike Maxfield

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Dec 15, 2000, 1:04:55 PM12/15/00

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bwic...@nyc.rr.com writes:
>________________________________________________________
>H.L. Mencken "The American Language" 1936
>Lists "chippy" with cocotte, courtesan, floozy, etc. as a word not
>used in Hollywood films in the 1930s to please the Hayes Office.
>_________________________________________________________________________

Using the exact search term

chippy "sam spade"

on www.google.com, you get two major hits for this context of the
word.

At one site where someone is ranting and raving, chippy is among a list
of generic Sam Spade/detective terms for women.

[...]
"inner monologue, in addition to other hardboiled detective terms for a
"skirt including a bim, an ankle, a babe, a broad, a chippy, a dame, a
"dolly, a dish, a Jane, a kitten, a looker, a sister, a tomato, and a
"twist, who might be expected, in the final chapter, to dust out with
[...]

The other major hit is a pulp fiction "hardboiled slang" site defined
as:

"This is the language spoken by Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Mike Hammer
"and the Continental Op. When Cagney, Bogart, Robinson and Raft got in
"a turf war, this is how they talked.

where Chippy is defined as a "Woman of easy virtue."

--
tw...@io.com

euroleader

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Dec 15, 2000, 3:06:28 PM12/15/00

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'chipi' - oldest known usage in France dates back to 1821.....

combination of two French words, 'chiper' (rough translation to steal all
the clothes off your back) and a 'pie', or magpie, the chattering bird.....
previous usage in France of 'chipie' basically means a woman who is very
difficult to live with! (Current meaning has changed somewhat, mainly used
to describe a cheeky (verging on the unpleasant) kid, older generations may
recollect the sense 'ill-natured woman', but it is rarely used that way
now.... )

Given that the term has been in common usage for so long in France, and the
similarity of meaning, it seems possible that the US/English term 'chippie'
originated there. Seems strange the US meaning of the word is unknown in
Britain though, if that's the case. I asked a couple of English
octogenarians, who'd never come across the term in its US sense.

Peter, S. France
http://pro.wanadoo.fr/euroleader/wedderburn

researching the Wedderburns and their descendants around the world
____________________________________________________

"Wayne Johnston" <way...@unforgettable.com> wrote in message
news:3A39960F...@unforgettable.com...

Guy Etchells

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Dec 16, 2000, 3:15:25 AM12/16/00

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You would be shocked by the use of chippy in present day Yorkshire then,
over here the word has two meanings;
A fish and chip shop and the other a joiner (mainly on building sites).
Cheers
Guy

--
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