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stripper

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Etymology and origin of the English word stripper

Pronunciation

  • UK: /stɹɪpə/[1]
  • US: /stɹɪpɚ/[1]

stripper1 one that strips

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1581 Mulcaster's Positions
Ultimate origin
Proto-West Germanic *straupjan
Etymology tree of stripper1
inherited borrowed derived
English strip
English stripper

Etymology

The noun for one that strips is formed from English strip + -er.[2][3][4][5][6] The verb goes back to Old English *strīepan, recorded in the compound bestrȳpan (“to strip, plunder, despoil”), from Proto-West Germanic *straupjan.[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who strips something or someone, such as the bark from trees: 1581, in Mulcaster's Positions.[2][5][4]

Semantic evolution

Most later senses name a person, machine or substance that removes something.[2][4] The word was used of workers who stripped bark, tobacco leaves, hides or the waste in a carding machine,[2][4] and in West Yorkshire of such a worker in wool combing and of a cylinder on a carding machine.[8] From 1835 it named a machine or appliance for stripping,[2][5] in Australia a kind of harvester[9] and in New Zealand a machine that strips flax.[10] In gambling, strippers were cards cut slightly wider than the rest, so that a cheat could draw them out (1843).[2] A bleaching agent used before re-dyeing was called a stripper from 1909, and a chemical for removing paint or varnish from 1937.[2] The sense of a performer of striptease, appeared in the United States in 1929–30;[2][11][5] for some decades Life magazine used strippeuse instead.[5]

Timeline

  • 1581 – one who strips something.[2][4]
  • 1835 – a machine or appliance for stripping.[2][5]
  • 1843 – plural, gamblers' cards cut to be easily drawn.[2]
  • 1909 – a bleaching agent used before re-dyeing.[2]
  • 1929 – a striptease performer.[2]
  • 1930 – a still for refining oil.[2]
  • 1937 – a chemical for removing paint or varnish.[2]
  • 1959 – in physics, a part of a particle accelerator that strips electrons from ions.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A performer of striptease: The club hired two strippers for the night.[12][13][2][14]
  2. A chemical preparation for removing paint, varnish or another surface coating.[12][2]
  3. A person or thing that strips something.[12][13][2]
  4. A machine or tool for stripping, such as one that separates the wanted part of a crop; in Australia, a kind of harvester.[13][2][9]

Word family

  • paint stripper

stripper2 cow giving little milk; oil well

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1856 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society
Ultimate origins
Old English bestrypanEnglish -er
Etymology tree of stripper2
inherited borrowed derived
English strip
English stripper

Etymology

The cow giving little milk is formed from English strip + -er, from the verb strip, to draw the last milk from a cow's udder,[2][3][8] a verb the OED takes as a separate word of Germanic origin, comparing West Flemish strippen (“to draw between the fingers”).[2] Dolan derives the Irish use from dialectal English.[15] The oil well that yields only a little is probably the same word, by analogy with a cow that gives little milk.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cow that is not in calf but still gives a little milk: 1856, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The cow sense is a dialect word, recorded in Ireland, Cumberland and Nottinghamshire,[8][3] and in Galway such a cow was one fit to be sold.[15] From 1930 the oil industry used stripper, or more fully stripper well, for a well whose output had fallen to a few barrels a day.[2][3]

Timeline

  • 1856 – a cow giving little milk.[2]
  • 1930 – an oil well with a very small output.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An oil well that produces ten barrels a day or fewer; also called a stripper well.[12][13][2]
  2. (dialect) A cow not in calf that gives very little milk.[2][3][8]

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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  8. ^ a b c d e 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 Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Deverson, Tony; Kennedy, Graeme, eds. (2005), The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary, Auckland: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  12. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  13. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  14. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
  15. ^ a b Dolan, Terence Patrick (2004), A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English, 2nd ed., Dublin: Gill & Macmillan
Cite this entry

“Stripper.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/stripper. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

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