Meanings
zipperhead1
plural zipperheads
- CanadaslanggovernmentA soldier in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps or in the Armoured Crewman military trade.
Synonyms: trooper, crewman, tanker, armoured crewman, armoured soldier, tread-head, treadhead
zipperhead2
plural zipperheads
- USderogatoryethnicoffensiveslangslurgovernmentA person of East Asian descent.
Synonyms: almond eyes, chicken lips, dink, gook, slant eye, slopehead, zipperlid
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA soldier in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps or in the Armoured Crewman military trade.
nounA person of East Asian descent.
Origin
zipperhead · noun
From zipper + head, in reference to the leather helmets used by early Canadian armoured crewmen, which had zipper-like stitching.
Full word history & related roots →zipperhead · noun
Coined by US soldiers during the Vietnam War, apparently from zipper + head. The semantic motivation is unclear. One theory is that the Vietnamese were so called because their heads would split open in zipper-like fashion if they were shot in the right way; another is that zipper-like tracks would be left on them if they were run over by jeeps or tanks.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
zipperhead. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/zipperhead
“zipperhead.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/zipperhead. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “zipperhead,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/zipperhead.
Source: zipperhead on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.