kippered

English

Verb

kippered

1. simple past and past participle of kipper

Adjective

kippered (comparative more kippered, superlative most kippered)

1. Stiff and lacking vitality; stale.
   • 1927, Ralph W. Pringle, Methods with Adolescents, page 253:

     Our writers of history have been aroused from “ their somnolent antiquarian busy-work on kippered events and are feeling the force of living ones and learning what it means to get in the study of the present inspiration and interest for assimilating a knowledge of the past.

   • 1963, William Henry Hills, Robert Luce, The Writer - Volume 76:

     At first I thought perhaps my students were writing this kind of kippered prose because they were attempting scenes and subjects that they knew nothing about.

   • 2016, Piers Brendon, Edward VIII:

     and he caused offence by banging the drums and beating the cymbals at a dance in Lucknow, and sitting at table beside pretty ingénues rather than kippered memsahibs of suitable seniority.

   • 2019, Emil Reich, Nights with the Gods:

     She was, at heart, as dry, as kippered, as intentionalist, and coldly selfconscious as the driest of Egyptian book-keepers in a great merchant firm at Corinth.

   • 2019, Robert Baldwin Ross, Masques & Phases:

     Where, lingering lovingly on kippered lies, They babble over chestnuts and their punch And stale round-table jests of years ago.

2. Worn out; tired.
   • 2012, Jessica Stirling, The Asking Price:

     Cigar clenched between his knuckles, Johnnie Whiteside patted Gordon's knee. 'How d'you feel, old spud?' 'Slightly kippered,' Gordon answered. 'Not too kippered?' said Eric.

   • 2015, Leon Garfield, The Drummer Boy, page 85:

     He was done for, you know . . . quite kippered . . . The General's words dinned in his brain.

Derived terms

• kippered beef
• unkippered