Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a go, a time.

1801		Brooks Gleanings 64: Twenty Per Cent was struck off at one clip, from those kind of Shoes, which are mostly worn [DA].
1853		Southern Literary Messenger Apr. 218: Contempt at ten dollars a clip — that was old Ramkat’s tariff.
1864		D. Chisholm Civil War Notebook (1989) 135: I can knock a Johnny every clip at 4 or 5 Hundred yards with my rifle.
1895		S. Crane Red Badge of Courage (1964) 29: They’ve licked us about every clip up to now.
1904		Ade ‘Lonesome Trolley-Riders’ in True Bills 5: Mr. Frisbie had won $3 and his Wife had pinched it, Twenty Cents at a Clip.
1909		R.A. Wason Happy Hawkins 12: A man can drink an’ fight an’ carry on for a year at a clip.
1920		R. Lardner Big Town 139: I guess a man won’t make no mistake following a bird that bets five and ten thousand at a clip.
1938		D. Runyon ‘The Brakeman’s Daughter’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 503: He is bound to spend it at ten cents a clip.
1957		‘Ed Lacy’ Lead With Your Left (1958) 132: They got four or five grand at a clip.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 25: I’ve had as many as seven [prostitutes] at a clip.
1968		in J.P. Spradley You Owe Yourself a Drunk (1988) 58: Traffic cases first, drunks finaly [sic] at 10.00 a.m., 20 at a clip.
1970		P. Roth My Life as a Man (1974) 111: They disappear into the bedsheets at the local motel for forty-eight hours at a clip.
1983		R. Price Breaks 405: They’d vanish for years at a clip.
1999		J. Ellroy ‘My Life as a Creep’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 129: I stockpiled food, booze and inhalers [...] I holed up for two weeks at a clip.
2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 156: [M]y eight-hour tours were never shorter than thirteen hours a clip.