transitive. To close or fasten (something, esp. an item of clothing) by means of a zip (frequently with up). Also (with open, down, etc.): to open or unfasten (something) by means of a zip (cf. unzipperv.).
The verb zipper is frequently found in North American English, with zip being the more usual term outside North America (see zipv.1 2b).
1927
Mabel Harlan had the most fetching costume consisting of a vivid vermilion soft suede jacket, belted and ‘zippered’ up the front to the small collar.
Indianapolis Sunday Star 16 January (Magazine section) 4/3
1966
Driving wind..tunnelled through the TUT's open cab and Forsythe zippered up his jacket.
D. F. Galouye, Lost Perception vi. 60
1972
He knelt and pulled the bag out and zippered it open.
B. Pronzini, Panic! 46
1974
After he tucked in his shirt, he closed his pants, zippered them up, put his belt back, and then left.
H. L. Foster, Ribbin', Jivin', & Playin' Dozens vi. 284
2014
She zippered down her left boot and withdrew a pistol grip.
M. Solana, Citizen Simii. ii. 167
2018
I zippered my jacket to my chin, pulled my scarf in an extra loop, and walked on in the cold.
Senses relating to zip fasteners. transitive. To close or fasten (something) by means of a zip (frequently with adverb or complement, as shut, on, tog…
transitive. To fasten the clothes of (a person) by means of a zip; to enclose (a person) in something by closing it with a zip; to zip (a person) into something. Frequently with up.
1938
She..expects her husband to zipper her up in the back as often as she puts buttons in his shirt.
Manitowoc (Wisconsin) Herald-Times 31 December 7
1941
She..zippered him into his blue blanket and opened the window and kissed his cheek.
J. Kelly, Marriage is Private Affairvii. 162
1989
Then I rolled him over on his stomach, brought the bag around, and zippered him up.
M. Milan, Squad 107
2007
‘Zipper me up, love.’ Stevie gave the zip a sharp tug.
transitive. To fasten the clothes of (a person) by means of a zip; to enclose (a person) in something by closing it with a zip; to zip (a person) into…
transitive. figurative (chiefly North American). To keep (one's mouth or lips) closed so as not to talk or divulge information. Frequently used in commands to stop talking, as in zipper your mouth. Cf. zipv.1 2d.
1930
Zipper. To shut something up, principally the mouth.
J. Lait, Put on Spot 212
1942
You can spread panic and discontent so easily when we need calm and efficiency so desperately. Zipper your lips.
Winnipeg Free Press 22 August 9
1954
‘Zipper your mouth,’ Monk would retort. ‘You're making more draft than the wind.’
transitive. In scientific contexts: to bind or attach (adjacent polymeric molecules, membranes, etc.) as if by a zip fastener, esp. by a linear or sequential series of bonds or links. Also intransitive (usually with up): to become linked or attached as if by a zip. Cf. zipv.1 2e.
1955
This concept of intermolecular association likewise explains the reverse action of retrogradation, zippering together linear molecules to give gels or insoluble precipitates.
T. J. Schoch & A. L. Elder in Advances in Chemistryvol. 22 27
1960
The presence, shortly after cooling, of rods (presumably triple helices) suggests that the single helices ‘zipper’ up with ease.
Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences U.S.A.vol. 46 1192
1971
It seems to act by zippering together chromosomes which have their homologous telomeres attached next to each other at the nuclear membrane.
Nature 3 September 48/2
2003
The hole in the upper (dorsal) surface of the embryonic epidermis is in the process of being zippered closed from both the left and right ends.
Science 4 April 63/3 (caption)
2016
While ‘single-stranded’ RNA molecules do not usually have full-length partner strands of RNA to zipper up with, RNA molecules form a number of shorter helices instead through base pairing either within or between molecules.
D. Elliott & M. Ladomery, Molecular Biol. RNA (ed. 2) ii. 14/2
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.
Vowels
iːfleece
ihappy
ɪkit
ɛdress
atrap, bath
ɑːstart, palm, bath
ɒlot
ɔːthought, force
ʌstrut
ʊfoot
uːgoose
əletter
əːnurse
ɪənear
ɛːsquare
ʊəcure
eɪface
ʌɪpride
aʊmouth
əʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ãgratin
ɒ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but /ˈpɛdl̩i/.
Vowels
ifleece, happy
ɪkit
ɛdress
ætrap, bath
ɑlot, palm, cloth, thought
ɑrstart
ɔcloth, thought
ɔrnorth, force
ʊfoot
ugoose
əstrut, comma
ərnurse, letter
ɪ(ə)rnear
ɛ(ə)rsquare
ʊ(ə)rcure
eɪface
aɪpride
aʊmouth
oʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ɑ̃gratin
æ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.
Consonants
b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values
gguy
jjay
yyore
chchore
khloch
shshore
ththaw
dhthee
zhbeige
Vowels
atrap
ahpalm
airsquare
arstart
arrcarry (British only)
awthought
ayface
a(ng)gratin
edress
eefleece
eerdeer
errmerry
ikit
ighpride
irrmirror
olot (British only)
ohgoat
oogoose
oorcure
orforce
orrsorry (British only)
owmouth
oyvoice
o(ng)salon
ustrut
uhletter
urnurse
urrhurry
uufoot
Frequency
zipper typically occurs about 0.2 times per million words in modern written English.
zipper is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 1 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands
Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.
Frequency of zipper, v., 1920–2010
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.
The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.
For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.
Decade
Frequency per million words
1920
0.023
1930
0.031
1940
0.039
1950
0.063
1960
0.092
1970
0.12
1980
0.16
1990
0.19
2000
0.2
2010
0.22
Frequency of zipper, v., 2017–2024
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the corpus.