chippie n.1
1. (orig. US) a young woman, esp. when promiscuous or a prostitute (often a part-timer or ‘amateur’); also as a term of address.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Sept. 1: [pic. caption] Comforting the ‘Chippies’. A bland and benevolent old pharisee carries bouquets to the naughty little Newark girls kept in jail. | |
| Lantern (New Orleans, LA) Oct. 27 3: This class of females are known by the gang as ‘Chippies,’ and most of them come from the slums, and work in the cigar and cigarette factories. | |
| Vandover and the Brute (1914) 20: I shook those chippies. I sized them up right away [...] They were no good. | |
| ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:ii 130: chippy, n. A harlot. | |
| Susan Lenox I 395: You chippies git off my beat. | |
| ‘Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio’ in Smoke and Steel 33: The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers. / The cartoonists weep in their beer. | |
| ‘Clip-Joint Chisellers’ in Ten Story Gang Aug. 🌐 As gold diggers they could chisel nicer and dig deeper than any two chippies on the big stem. | |
| (ref. to 1860) Gangs of Chicago 96: In the middle of 1860 it was estimated by the [Chicago] Tribune that two thousand ‘chippies’ plied their unholy trade in the retail business district alone. | |
| Lady in the Lake (1952) 56: I got drunk and stayed with a chippy. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Jimmy Brockett 178: You’re to blame for this, you little chippy! | |
| Men of the Und. 219: Not every girl [...] can become a syndicate chippy. | |
| Real Cool Killers (1969) 69: She caught the nigger with some chippie or ’nother. | |
| Last Exit to Brooklyn 49: Dont worry chippy, nobodys gonna hurtya. | |
| Tattoo the Wicked Cross (1981) 289: Nora was a navy-base chippy. | |
| (con. 1960s) Wanderers 57: Some chippy told him he had an athletic ass. | |
| Tip on a Dead Crab 208: He must have been easy pickings for a toothsome chippy like Gloria, who’s got an ass [...] and knows how to peddle it to her advantage. | |
| Rumble Tumble 19: Some little chippie in boogie town does a coon and gets ten bucks. | |
| Stalker (2001) 412: First time out, she gets someone to fire a few potshots at him and his chippy. | |
| Mad mag. June 30: That chippy swore she was 18! |
2. (US black, also chippie-gal) a slim, attractive ‘glamour girl’; thus sub-chippie, a younger girl.
| 2 Jan. 4/4: The leading dudes and chippies of Europe had [the influenza] and pulled through all right [DA]. | |
| Chimmie Fadden 67: Down where I uster live I was de boss jollier wid de chippies. | |
| Life In Sing Sing 247: Chippy. A young girl. | |
| Home to Harlem 3: I’m crazy to see again the brown-skin chippies ’long Lenox Avenue. | |
| ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 4 Apr. 7/1: Lads and lassies, chappies and chippies there. | |
| ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 13 Feb. 7/1: My partner over there is pledged to keep a steady eye on al the chippies and sub-chippies. | |
| ‘Here & There’ in N.Y. Age 15 Feb. 10/6: [F]ooling around the very young chippies or should we say Kids with a capital K. | |
| ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 10 May 9/5: Did Odean Mangum and Beverley Wilkins, his chippie-gal, take in the carnival? | |
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 31 Oct. 20/1: Chorine Bertie Lou Woods had a son old enough for Uncle Sam, which takes Bertie Lou out of the chippy class. | |
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 25: The cats and the chippies were all knocking a nod. [Ibid.] 88: ‘Chippie’ is commonly used to designate a racy rather slender type of girl who is good company, who can dance expertly, who has the money to pay her own way, who has a job, or is looking for one, and whose very attitude of independence makes her desirable. | |
| Cast the First Stone 146: I’ve left my home and gone hunting for a young chippy. |
3. (US black) a prostitute’s dress.
| Mister Jelly Roll (1952) 23: There were women standing in their cribs with their chippies on [...] a chippie is a dress that women wore, knee length and very easy to disrobe. |
4. attrib. use of sense 3.
| God’s Man 278: ‘There you go,’ cut in the man, ‘cheap chippy vanity. Whoever told you you could act?’. | |
| ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 167: Seven years, a natural — and all because a chippy blonde had mentioned a cocaine party, and he had been nuts about that blonde. |
5. (US gay) a male prostitute or promiscuous gay man.
| City of Night 158: That park’s for chippies, man! — hell, they go for pennies there! | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
In compounds
1. a well-dressed loafer who spec. pursues young shopgirls and even schoolgirls, thus chippy-chasing.
| Abilene Reflector (KS) 19 May 7/3: ‘A chippy chaser’ [...] They stand upon the street corners until some pretty girls pass by, then follow them, talking in a loud voice. | |
| Amer. Sl. Dict. 64: Chippy Chasers are the well-dressed loafers who lie in wait for shopgirls and school children. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Mirror of Life 13 Jan. 12/3: Macers, braces, chippie chasers / What a lovely place Piccadilly is. | |
| Bottom Dogs 18: He was sometimes a pimp, always a chippie-chaser. He [...] affected the airs of a dude about town. | |
| ‘Adventures of a Fuller Brush Man: “The Amorous Mrs. Twirp”’ [comic strip] in Tijuana Bibles (1997) 47: ‘Sugar-Daddy’ A boon to chippy-chasers and old men. | |
| ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 12 Dec. 7/1: Buddy Broyard is still at it. Yeah, chippy-chasin’. |
2. a devotee of prostitutes or promiscuous women; also in homosexual use.
| (con. 1917–18) War Bugs 201: Mr. Papolis was a Greek chippy-chaser. | |
| Great Magoo 69: I t’ink you’re just a big bag o’ wind, you loud mouth chippy-chaser. | |
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 5 Dec. 20/2: The sob sisters [...] were the center of attraction for the chippie chasers, and boy, did they get a kick out it. | |
| (con. 1920s) Hoods (1953) 302: He likes the girls. He’s a chippie chaser. | |
| Burn, Killer, Burn! 73: That rotten, whore-hopping baboon [...] that chippie-chaser. | |
| Maledicta 1 (Summer) 10: One was once insulted by being accused of [...] being [...] a chippy-chaser, a cunt-hound, a pimp, or a gigolo, or even a tit-kisser, which really just means a seducer. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 82: A chippie chaser is a skirt chaser. |
pursuing prostitutes or promiscuous women; in cit. 1972, by implication, to cheat on one’s partner.
| God’s Man 138: While regular fellows are young, they have a hell of a time chippy-chasing. | |
| Anecdota Americana I 145: Two friends, one of them the owner of a car, used to go ‘chippy-cruising’ every night. | |
| Disinherited 176: He caught a bad disease somewhere at his chippy-chasing. | |
 | radio speech 27 Apr. in Ezra Pound Speaking (1978) 291: A really severe Puritan like Eden or Morgenthau would probably tell you that the pursuit of happiness is on a level with chippy-chasing. | |
| Big Gold Dream 87: I’ll fix him [...] Around here chippy-chasing at this hour of the morning. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 44: chibby-chase [...] to cheat on a lover. | |
| (ref. to 1944) in Bucks County Courier Times (PA) 🌐 My quarters were in this same deluxe Hotel de Paree, but I was in no condition, mentally or physically, to either go boozing, dancing, or chippy chasing. |
(US) a brothel.
| Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 154: Your place is getting the reputation of a regular chippyhouse all over town. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 49: chippy house A brothel. | |
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 82: A chippie house or joint is a brothel. | |
| Homeboy 63: The Troll’s was hardly the regular chippy joint that got raided every week. |
(US black) that time of the evening when (young) women frequent the streets looking for amusement.
| N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 17 May 11: The chippy watch is mad, frantic and wild with the chicks [...] hunting for a solid cat. |