Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also zipped up) energetic, full of ‘pep’.

1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Misdirected Sympathy’ in True Bills 108: As for Vivian, our bright-eyed little Daughter, she is the zippiest High-Flyer that speeds the Boulevard.
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 249: I was still chewin’ over that zippy roast Aunty had handed me.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 15 Sept. [synd. col.] They are engaged in a newspaper controversy and are writing zipp letters to the newspapers.
1923		Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 172: I’m going to write them in something zippy to brighten the thing up a bit.
1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 3 Aug. [synd. col.] Gilda flips a zippy hip.
1932		Western Morn. News 28 May 3/2: Dead silence, ‘zippy’ acceleration [...] perfect steering, brakes [...] The Hillman Minx.
1939		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 8 Apr. [synd. col.] The Senator, Washington’s newest zippy weekly.
1949		G. McMillan Old Breed 217: The milk in these [coconuts] was like a club soda, [...] zippy and peppy.
1956		G. Marx letter 8 Jan. in Groucho Letters (1967) 199: Boy, that must be zippy reading nowadays.
1971		I. Faust Willy Remembers 90: We gave Tracy the horselaugh, but he was too zipped up to even notice.
1971		Winick & Kinsie Lively Commerce 180: Some johns want you to have warm water or oil of wintergreen in your mouth – it gives them a zippy feeling when you French them.
1988		in Walking After Midnight (1989) 91: New York is fast and zippy and full of energy.
1999		Indep. Mag. 12 June 31: A housewife’s dreams can be answered by a zippy new kind of cream cleanser.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 16 Jan. 28: The new, zippy, modern marketing men have become more sophisticated.

2. (US) fashionable.

1920

O.O. McIntyre Bits of New York Life 20 Dec. [synd. col.] The zippy thing in tea circles is too look terrifically [?bored].

3. fast, speedy.

1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 106: First an Irish reel, very zippy, see.
1932		Quad-City Times (Davenport, IA) 6 Apr. 2/1: I’ll crash a sugar-daddy / And I’ll take him plenty far [...] and burn him / For a red-green zippy car.
1941		E. Hoffman Price ‘Murder Salvage’ in Spicy Detective Apr. 🌐 See that zippy big Cad?
1999		Guardian Weekend 16 Oct. 84: Fitted with zippy gas controls.

4. (drugs) containing amphetamine or similar stimulant.

1993

R. Shell Iced 236: I was loud and rowdy and the regulars looked at me as if I’d smoked some zippy shit.