chipper

What it means

1. Exhibiting a lively optimism; in high spirits, cheerful.

   Van Halen orders garlic strewn about Lucy's bedroom. she feels a bit chipperer the next morning, so Mina heads off to help poor Harker in Budapest.

   2013, Michelle Witte, Faker's Guide to the Classics, page 66

   2 more examples

   The idea of a merchant selling both totems of pure evil and frozen yogurt (he calls it frogurt!) is amusing in itself, as is the idea that frogurt could be cursed, but it’s really the Shopkeeper’s quicksilver shift from ominous doomsaying to chipper salesmanship that sells the sequence.

   2012 April 29, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Treehouse of Horror III” (season 4, episode 5; originally aired 10/29/1992)”, in AV Club

   "Sure, but she's not saying." Imrich kicked his feet up on the coffee table, dislodging a pile of research papers — hers, of course — onto the floor. She tried not to twitch. Laiken twitched a lot, and it was irritating. "Personally I think she has the magical ability to not notice she's working for an arguably evil worldwide truth suppression conspiracy. Nobody at the SCP Foundation ought to be that goddamn chipper."

   2022 September 15, HarryBlank, “The Mourning After”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 14 Jun 2024

In a sentence

Van Halen orders garlic strewn about Lucy's bedroom. she feels a bit chipperer the next morning, so Mina heads off to help poor Harker in Budapest.

2013, Michelle Witte, Faker's Guide to the Classics, page 66

Where it comes from

From English dialectal kipper (“nimble; frisky”), of obscure origin. Perhaps akin to Old Norse kjapt (“briskly; impetuously”), kippa ("to snatch; pull; jerk" > Middle English kippen (“to seize”)), kipra (“to wrinkle; draw tightly”), Norwegian kjapp (“fast; brisk”), Dutch kippen (“to seize; catch; grip”). More at kip.