noun
- a fish, especially a herring, that has been cured by splitting, salting, drying, and smoking.
- this method of curing fish.
- a male salmon during or after the spawning season.
verb (used with object)
- to cure (herring, salmon, etc.) by splitting, salting, drying and smoking.
noun Australian Informal.
- a young male Aborigine, usually 14 to 16 years old, who has recently undergone his tribal initiation rite.
noun
- a fish, esp a herring, that has been cleaned, salted, and smoked
- a male salmon during the spawning season
- Australian archaic, derogatory, slang an Englishman
verb
- (tr) to cure (a fish, esp a herring) by salting and smoking
noun
- a native Australian youth who has completed an initiation rite
noun
- informal an adult who cannot afford to move away from his or her parents’ home
Old English cypera “male salmon,” perhaps related to coper “reddish-brown metal” (see copper), on resemblance of color. Another theory connects it to kip, name for the sharp, hooked lower jaw of the male salmon in breeding season, from Middle English kippen “to snatch, tug, pull.” The modern word usually refers to kippered herring, from a verb meaning “to cure a fish by cleaning, salting, and spicing it” (early 14c.). The theory is that this originally was done to salmon, hence the name.