Clippers

How to spell clippers

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce clippers

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does clippers mean?

1. nounA hand or electric tool with two blades or arms used to trim hair, nails, hedges, or wire.

Clippers in a sentence

• The barber switched on his clippers to fade the sides.

• She keeps a small pair of nail clippers in her travel bag.

Where does clippers come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The root verb 'clip' came into English from the Old Norse 'klippa', meaning 'to cut short' or 'to shear', brought over by Scandinavian settlers in the medieval period. The literal idea was a quick, snipping cut, which is why we still 'clip' coupons, hedges, and fingernails. Adding the agent suffix '-er' turned the verb into the name of a tool that does the cutting, and because such tools have two working blades or arms, the word is almost always used in the plural, 'clippers', much like 'scissors' and 'pliers'. The same verb later gave the famous 'clipper' ships of the 1800s, named for how fast they 'clipped along' through the water. The spelling trap is the doubled 'p', which appears because the short vowel in 'clip' demands a doubled consonant before the suffix.

How the word is built

• clip (to cut)
• -er (instrument that does the action)
• -s (plural)