Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to interrupt, to speak impudently.

1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 14 Sept. 4/4: [He] was interrupted by the cheeky chirrup of a newsboy who chipped out, ‘Here y’are, want a Dead Bird?’.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 15 Feb. 5/5: ‘[T]hey’s [i.e. servant girls] handy chippin’ an’ milkin’, an’ the like o’ that’.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Sept. 26/4: He gazed moodily at his empty pewter. ‘And he refused to deal?’ I chipped. Treloar sighed like a punctured tyre. ‘’E dealt with Bill orlrite,’ he said. ‘Twig ’is lamp! Jest our stinkin’ luck ter strike er rotten nineteener like ’im. Lend us one an’ er kick, an’ I’ll shout.’.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Sept. 30/1: We all was hard junk whaling men / Who’d signed for grounds afar, / We pottered round the bloomin’ bay / And never crossed the bar. / And if we chipped him, askin’ when / He’d turn her beak to sea, / He’d snarl inside his whiskers, / And he’d talk of mutiny.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘The Crusaders’ in Chisholm (1951) 80: ‘Too right,’ I chips. ‘I’ve ’eard that yarn before.’.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 133: Coppers not supposed to take us from here? Well, I’ve seeen it happen [...] I chipped a copper here for taking a bloke.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 46: chip 1. To be impertinent, eg, ‘That boy chips me one more time, he cops it.’.

2. (also make chip-chip) to tease, to banter with; thus chipping, teasing.

1894		H. Nevinson ‘The St. George of Rochester’ in Keating Working Class Stories of the 1890s (1971) 42: I’d get some fellers to come round with me and be chippin’ young Duffy. [Ibid.] 54: You may be sure I got a rare chippin’ from all of my mates.
1901		Murray & Leigh [perf. Fred Earle] ‘Don’t Stick It Out Like That’ 🎵 Uncle Jonah's got a funny nose / He gets ‘chipped’ no matter where he goes.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Oct. n.p.: There was a yell of laughter [...] and the unhappy challenger was mercilessly ‘chipped’.
1905		Sporting Times 3 June 1/4: Cabby and conductor chipping each other.
1917		Examiner (Launceston, Tas.) 1 Oct. 6/5: The cheeky, swaggering, cigarette-smoking, larrikin collection of youths [...] ‘chipping’ the girls of the town.
1919		Marvel 3 Mar. 16: It was partly my own fault for stopping to chip Dunbrook about his eye.
1923		Kipling ‘The Janeites’ in Debits and Credits (1926) 157: Macklin used to chip me about bein’ an ’air-dresser. ’E could pass remarks, too!
1943		I. Wolfert Tucker’s People (1944) 333: Young loafers, waiting, they got nothing else to do except make chip-chip at the girls passing.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 146: A coupler mug lairs starts ter chip ’em.
2002		(con. 1932-3) D. Frith Bodyline Autopsy 130: At one point Vic Richardson chipped him about his slowness.

3. (also chip the lips) to complain, to criticize, to reprimand.

1895		Derby Mercury 9 Jan. 8/3: Then they starts chipping each other.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 25 May 3/4: It appears that old Canoodle, getting home the other night, / At the missus started chipping .
1907		Derby Dly Teleg. 6 Apr. 3/6: She was always jawing me and her mother jawed me too. She was always chipping me about being out of work.
1911		E.S. Sorenson ‘Shearer and Rouseabout’ in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 248: A good captain has no trouble with his men. He may ‘chip’ them often, but while his chips are effective, they leave no bitterness.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Sept. 51/1: Lu Triffles, the Minister for Agriculture, comes round with his tongue in his cheek. He starts chippin’ about his department.
1929		‘Henry Green’ Living (1978) 307: He called Jim and said to him why must he be chipping Lily about Jones, why not leave her alone more?
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 51: If a shed runs for two hours without somebody gettin’ chipped [faulted for bad shearing] they say ‘twelve o’clock and not a word said’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 163: God knows I pay him well, but he always looks as though he has been sleeping in his clobber. I’ve chipped him about this but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
1961		R.S. Close With Hooves of Brass 59: [H]e had a thumb bandaged, but when Old Fred chipped him about it, Preacher [...] raised his eyes, as if to reply that probably even our Lord Jesus hit His thumb sometimes with a hammer.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 46: chip the lips (’71) to speak evilly of somebody.
1976		D. Ireland Glass Canoe (1982) 18: Kids used to get on the course and swim in the third dam [...] It was a mistake to chip them.
1992		M. Coleman Fatty 163: ‘I had to chip ’em a bit on that one’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

4. to hit.

1900

H. Lawson ‘Joe Wilson’s Courtship’ in Roderick (1972) 549: Use your crimson hands or, by God, I’ll chip you.

5. of a man, to flirt with a woman.

1915

C.J. Dennis Songs of a Sentimental Bloke gloss. 🌐 Chip – To ‘chat,’ q.v.

6. to speak to.

1919

C.H. Thorp Handful of Ausseys 175: I chips a bloke I knew and arsts ’im all abaht it.

7. (US black) to kill, to shoot dead.

2014

J. Leovy Ghettoside 170: ‘A tramp just got chipped,’ she told him [...] it meant a gang rival had been shot.