Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US campus) a grade or mark of zero; also of sports scores.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 70: zip, n. A zero mark.
1928		H. Brackbill ‘Midshipman Jargon’ in AS III:6 455: Swabo, zip — Zero.
1969		Current Sl. III:3.
1972		R. Kahn Boys of Summer 84: A printer hovered over the page and responded quickly to the information I fed. ‘Nothing for Brooklyn in the first’ ‘A zip for the Bums’ .
1978		T. O’Brien Going After Cacciato (1980) 267: One-zip, huh? The gooks shut us out, one-zip.
1985		(con. 1968) D.A. Dye Citadel (1989) 300: Fucking zero. Zip.
1998		Guardian Sport 31 July 16: The sheilas, who are full of themselves after whitewashing us five-zip in the one-dayers.

2. (US, also zipkus, zippo) nothing.

1954		J. Thompson Swell-Looking Babe 88: Zip! Curtains. It’ll be the last goddamned thing you ever try.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 46: zip – Zero, nothing.
1978		N.Y. Times Mag. 3 Dec. 150: It goes for zip in the real world.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 24: Doing pretty much zip about this poor son of a bitch leaking his vital essences into the street.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 228: Tell your pals they get zippo.
1992		R. Marcinko Rogue Warrior (1993) 360: NIS saw zippo.
1995		M. Dibdin Dark Spectre (1996) 26: The chances of being sold the real stuff was just about zip.
1999		Guardian Guide 26 June–2 July 11: They sold zip all.
2000		F.X. Toole Rope Burns 26: A manager/trainer only gets 33 percent of the purse. Ike gets zip.
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 213: Joey left me zippo, Red. All I’ve got is what’s in the bank.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] You know what I felt? [...] Nothing. Zip. Zilch.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 211: Matty had zip: no leads and no real manpower .
2009		T. Black Gutted 193: I’d achieved little more than zip with my efforts to find Moosey’s killer.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] Looking for her and finding zipkus.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 369: ‘Not that you can do much with it right?’ ‘Zero. Zippo. Zilch’.
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] We’d caught nothing. Zero. Zip.

3. (US prison) zero, used in specifying the maximum length of a sentence, e.g. zip-five, from 0–5 years; zip-ten, 0–10 years etc.

1964		Larner & Tefferteller Addict in the Street (1966) 83: I was sent to Elmira for zip-five and I did forty-eight months.
1977		J. Cheever Falconer 65: Armed robbery. Zip to ten. Second offense.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘Convicted felon in possession of a concealed firearm. That’s a pound zip-bit right there.’ Five-year minimum sentence.

4. (also zip sack) an insignificant person; an unpleasant person with no good qualities.

1971–2		C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 217: zip, n. – a fool; a sucker.
1985		T.R. Houser Central Sl. 61: zip sack A fool [...] ‘Niggers who all be in the same bag, always in trouble, they zip sacks.’.
1987		N.Y. Times 10 July n.p.: Some people are real zippos [R].
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 433: zip. A person of no account.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 76: The zip damn fool just used his real name.
1993		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 6: zip – a zero, a loser.