Etymologically
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ripper

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 1 November 2026 at 02:57. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹɪpɚ/[1]
  • UK: /ˈɹɪpə/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English rip + -er, an agent noun from the verb.[2][3][4][5][6] The verb itself is of uncertain origin; the OED takes its earliest sense, "to tear", as probably borrowed from a continental West Germanic or a North Germanic word,[2] and Etymonline compares West Flemish rippen (“to strip off roughly”), West Frisian rippe (“to tear, rip”), Middle Dutch reppen and Swedish reppa.[3] For the sense of a tool, the OED compares ripper (“a poor knife”) in West Frisian.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who rips something: 1611, in Cotgrave's French–English dictionary.[2][5] Etymonline dates the word to the 1610s and notes that it was at first used chiefly in technical senses and in slang.[3]

Semantic evolution

Most early uses name workers whose job was ripping, sawing or clearing away,[2] and the word also named tools from 1659, such as one a fletcher used to shape arrow shafts, now obsolete.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as one who rips, tears or lacerates.[7] In Somerset a ripper was a man who stripped bark from trees for the tanners.[8] The sense of a murderer who mutilates his victims comes from the name given to Jack the Ripper, the London murderer of 1888;[3][2] the OED's first record is from 1888,[2] and Etymonline suggests that the nickname puns on ripper as a tool for ripping off old slates (1823) and as a slang word for an excellent person or thing.[3] The OED records that slang sense from 1825,[2] Etymonline and Green's Dictionary of Slang from 1838,[3][9] and Etymonline relates it to ripping, splendid.[3] In Australia it became an adjective, "excellent", from 1973.[2][9] In American politics a ripper bill, from 1885, strips power from an agency or a political opponent.[2][5] Later technical senses include a tractor attachment that breaks up concrete or hard ground (1953) and computer software that copies data from a CD or DVD (1989).[2]

Timeline

  • 1611 – a person who rips something.[2][5]
  • 1659 – a tool or apparatus for ripping.[2]
  • 1825 – slang, a particularly fine person or thing.[2] Etymonline dates it to 1838.[3]
  • 1877 – a person who behaves recklessly (now obsolete).[2][9]
  • 1885 – United States politics, a bill or law that strips another body of its powers.[2]
  • 1888 – a murderer who mutilates the bodies of his victims, after Jack the Ripper.[2][3]
  • 1925 – in Scotland, an illegal fishing line with a weighted bar and hooks.[2]
  • 1953 – a tractor attachment for breaking up concrete or hard soil.[2][4]
  • 1969 – in the plural, amphetamines, in drug slang.[9]
  • 1973 – Australian adjective, excellent.[2]
  • 1989 – software that copies audio or video from a disc.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person who rips, especially a worker whose job is ripping open seams, operating a ripsaw or gutting fish.[5][2]
  2. A tool, machine or tractor attachment that rips or breaks things up, such as concrete or hard soil.[5][2][4]
  3. A murderer who mutilates his victims' bodies, after the name of Jack the Ripper.[2][4][3]
  4. (slang) An excellent person or thing: That last goal was a real ripper.[2][9]
  5. (computing) A program that copies audio or video data from a disc or the web into a file.[2]
  6. (US politics) A bill or law that removes the powers of an agency or political opponent.[2][5]

Adjective

  1. (US) Of a law: made to change a government agency drastically for partisan ends: a ripper amendment.[5][2]
  2. (Australian slang) Excellent, first-class.[2][9]

Word family

  • bodice ripper

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  9. ^ a b c d e f Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com