ripper
a person or thing that rips.
Also ripper bill, ripper act . a legislative bill or act for taking powers of appointment to and removal from office away from the usual holders of these powers and conferring them unrestrictedly on a chief executive, as a governor or mayor, or on a board of officials.
a double-ripper.
a killer who dispatches and often mutilates victims with a knife or similar weapon.
Mining. a hooklike tool, attached to earth-moving machinery, for tearing away ore, rock, etc.
Chiefly British Slang. something especially strong, fine, or good of its kind.
Origin of ripper
1Words Nearby ripper
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use ripper in a sentence
Did the ripper quit because he feared that he was close to being caught?
This makes the guide to the Jack the ripper Walk seem rather dated.
Of course, you could protest that Sherlock did not really exist and the ripper did.
Later heads of Scotland Yard admitted that the ripper should have been caught.
LONDON — If Sherlock Holmes was such a smart detective, why was he not put on the case of Jack the ripper?
Old ripper, a talkative, discontented man, stopped and ventured to enter on his grievances.
Elster's Folly | Mrs. Henry WoodMr. ripper's opinion was that he had lost his senses with the blow on the temple, and fell an easy prey to death.
Elster's Folly | Mrs. Henry WoodMr. ripper's logic tended to the belief that he could not be punished if he stuck to the avowal of having seen nothing.
Elster's Folly | Mrs. Henry WoodSuch cases as that of Jack the ripper, for instance, are undoubtedly due to a special tendency to take life.
Essays In Pastoral Medicine | Austin MalleyBut as the policemen closed in around me there was a cry raised, "It is Jack the ripper in disguise."
Prisons and Prayer: Or a Labor of Love | Elizabeth Ryder Wheaton
British Dictionary definitions for ripper
/ (ˈrɪpə) /
a person who rips
a murderer who dissects or mutilates his victims' bodies
informal, mainly Australian and NZ a fine or excellent person or thing
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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