zipper

English

Etymology

1925, zip +‎ -er. The trade name was registered in 1925 by B.F. Goodrich for “boots made of rubber and fabric,” claiming use of the name since June 1923. No longer a registered trademark.

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: zĭʹpər, IPA^(key): /ˈzɪpɚ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈzɪpə(ɹ)/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪpə(ɹ)

Noun

zipper (plural zippers)

1. (chiefly US, Australia) A zip fastener.

   He got his T-shirt stuck in the zipper of his jacket.

2. A pressure-sensitive plastic closure.
3. (biochemistry) A leucine zipper.
4. (slang) A scar on a person's body.
   • 1969, Jerry Kramer, Farewell to football, page 111:

     I also competed in track and field at Idaho, and it's all because of putting the shot that I've got my long scar, my zipper, down the back of my neck.

   • 1979, Don Atyeo, Blood & guts, violence in sports, page 227:

     Making the transition from high school to college teams, for instance, he could not believe the scars his new players were sporting. "So many athletes had zippers down the side of their knee, or knees; they thought nothing of it and called this or that a Band-Aid operation. […]

5. (US, military, slang, dated) An air patrol carried out at dawn or dusk.
   • 1949, Walter Karig, Battle Report:

     […] the usual gap between the time the last strike of the day departed and the first night hecklers arrived was closed with "zippers" — night fighters who, using day fighter tactics, proceeded to the target in daylight in time to relieve the last day blanket patrol.

   • 1993, E. T. Wooldridge, Carrier Warfare in the Pacific: An Oral History Collection, page 268:

     They would handle all the night combat air patrols, the night hecklers who would go over the enemy airfields, and we formed a new little gimmick called "zippers" to help close that gap between the time the daylight strikes left the target and darkness.

6. (BDSM) A string of clothes pegs or clips attached to the body and then quickly pulled off.
7. (programming) A technique for arbitrarily traversing an aggregate data structure and updating its contents. See zipper (data structure).

Synonyms

• slide fastener
• zip (British), zip fastener (British)

Meronyms

• slider
• teeth

Derived terms

• zipper machine
• zipper merge
• zipper sex
• zipper spider

 

Descendants

• → Cebuano: siper
• → Esperanto: zipo
• → French: zipper
• → Japanese: ジッパー (jippā)
• → Korean: 지퍼 (jipeo)
• → Portuguese: zíper
• → Spanish: zíper
• → Tagalog: siper

Translations

zip fastener — see zip fastener

Verb

zipper (third-person singular simple present zippers, present participle zippering, simple past and past participle zippered)

1. to close a zipper.

   He zippered his sweater against the cold.

2. to put a zipper on an article.

   These fall jackets are zippered.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English zip.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /zi.pe/

• Audio (CAN)

  (file)

Verb

zipper

1. (computing) to zip, compress

   Synonym: compresser

2. (Quebec) to zip up (close using a zip)

Conjugation

Conjugation of zipper (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	zipper
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	zippant /zi.pɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		zippé /zi.pe/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	zippe /zip/	zippes /zip/	zippe /zip/	zippons /zi.pɔ̃/	zippez /zi.pe/	zippent /zip/
	imperfect	zippais /zi.pɛ/	zippais /zi.pɛ/	zippait /zi.pɛ/	zippions /zi.pjɔ̃/	zippiez /zi.pje/	zippaient /zi.pɛ/
	past historic2	zippai /zi.pe/	zippas /zi.pa/	zippa /zi.pa/	zippâmes /zi.pam/	zippâtes /zi.pat/	zippèrent /zi.pɛʁ/
	future	zipperai /zi.pʁe/	zipperas /zi.pʁa/	zippera /zi.pʁa/	zipperons /zi.pʁɔ̃/	zipperez /zi.pʁe/	zipperont /zi.pʁɔ̃/
	conditional	zipperais /zi.pʁɛ/	zipperais /zi.pʁɛ/	zipperait /zi.pʁɛ/	zipperions /zi.pə.ʁjɔ̃/	zipperiez /zi.pə.ʁje/	zipperaient /zi.pʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	zippe /zip/	zippes /zip/	zippe /zip/	zippions /zi.pjɔ̃/	zippiez /zi.pje/	zippent /zip/
	imperfect2	zippasse /zi.pas/	zippasses /zi.pas/	zippât /zi.pa/	zippassions /zi.pa.sjɔ̃/	zippassiez /zi.pa.sje/	zippassent /zi.pas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	zippe /zip/	—	zippons /zi.pɔ̃/	zippez /zi.pe/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Related terms

• dézipper

Further reading

• “zipper”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.