CHAPTER IV
OPIUM CLIPPERS AND EARLY CLIPPER SHIPS, 1832-1848
The origin of the word clipper is not quite clear, though it seems to be derived from the verb clip, which in former times meant, among other things, to run or fly swiftly. Dryden uses it to describe the flight of a falcon[1]:
"Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed.
And, with her eagerness the quarry missed,
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind."
The word survived in the New England slang expression "to clip it," and "going at a good clip," or "a fast clip," are familiar expressions there to this day. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that when vessels of a new model were built, which were intended, in the language of the times, to clip over the waves rather than plough through them, the improved type of craft became known as clippers because of their speed. It is probable that the swift privateers built at Baltimore during the War of 1812 became known as " Baltimore clippers," and while the first application of the term in a
- ↑ Annus Mirabilis, stanza 89 (1667).
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