gippo

plural gippos · plural gippoes · alternative gypo · alternative gyppo

1. UKcountableoffensiveslanguncountableA Gypsy.
2. UKcountableoffensiverareslanguncountableAn Egyptian.

   Every foreigner in Cairo’s piling into the trains[.] The gyppo porters are having a high old time at the station.

   1977, Olivia Manning, chapter 1, in The Danger Tree

3. UKslanguncountablegovernmentGravy.

   They were always asking for ‘more gippo’ (gravy) which we got for them if we could.

   2006, Mildred Joan Tulip, My experiences as a VAD nurse

   1 more example

   He had his “dinner” in his canteen and placed it on the ground to go and “scrounge” a chunk of bread to help “fill up”, and as soon as he turned his back a dog walked in at the door of the barn, where we were “in residence” as they say “higher up”, [only we “flew no flag”], and started lapping up some of the “gippo”, [gravy] of which the said dinner was composed [in fact 'twas more “gippo” than dinner that day, so who could blame a dog for being mistaken].

   2006, George H. Coward, Coward's War

4. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of gyppo logger.

   But even where the company does its own logging, the size of the timber enables it to use a modified form of the contract system, somewhat analogous to the sweatshop system in other industries and sinisterly named by the I.W.W., the "gyppo" system.

   1923, Edward B Mittelman, “The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen: An Experiment in Industrial Relations”, in Journal of Political Economy, volume 31, number 3, page 316