Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an Egyptian, esp. an Egyptian soldier.

a.1889		World n.p.: Colonel Kitchener will probably stick to his original intention of having only gippies (as they call the Egyptian soldiers here) at Suakim [B&L].
1896		Regiment 25 Apr. 59/1: The ‘gippy’ is the Egyptian fellah turned soldier—of whose fighting qualities such different views are held.
1919		Dundee Courier 9 Sept. 4/4: Every man had his naboot — a formidable ironwood club, the Gippy’s favourite weapon.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 105: Gippy (or Gyppy): A native Egyptian soldier.
1930		(con. 1914–18) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier 129: Gyppy. — Familiar for native Egyptian Arab.

2. a gypsy.

1929

J.B. Booth London Town 307: Even the bloomin’ gippies had tumbled.

3. an Egyptian cigarette.

1920		Punch 7 Apr. 270: I’ll smoke with pleasure if they’re Gyppies. Can’t stand gaspers.
1926		W.S. Maugham Constant Wife (1927) II 122: When you once get the taste for them, you prefer them to gippies.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 465/2: since ca. 1905.

4. (US) Egypt.

1961		Delaware Co. Dly Times (Chester, PA) 6 Sept. 7/1: One of the biggest problems in Egypt [...] is water-borne parasitic disease [...] eradicating it was one of the early projects in Gyppy.
1967		R. Starnes Requiem in Utopia 20: The white man is finished in Gyppy. [...] Farouk will be in exile in a year.