zipperhead

English

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

From zipper +‎ head. From the leather helmets formerly used by early Canadian armoured crewmen, with a pattern of stitching resembling a zipper. There is also a folk etymology referring to the zippers on armoured-vehicle crew suits (repurposed flight suits).

Noun

zipperhead (plural zipperheads)

1. (Canada, military slang) A 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

References

• Edward C. Russell (1980), Customs and Traditions of the Canadian Armed Forces, Deneau and Greenberg, Department of National Defence, →ISBN, p 65.

Etymology 2

1960s–1970s, zipper +‎ head. Used by soldiers during the Korean and Vietnam Wars; multiple hypotheses exist as to the specific origin. One is that if an East Asian person were shot in the middle of the forehead with a machine gun, the head would split as if being unzipped; another, that the appearance of tire tracks on a body having been run over by a military Jeep or that of tank tracks resembled a zipper.

Noun

zipperhead (plural zipperheads)

1. (US, military slang, derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur) A person of East Asian descent.

Synonyms

• zipperlid
• gook
• slopehead
• slant eye
• almond eye's

Further reading

• zipperhead at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.